


Choices Made

by ibi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Relationships, Cole Ships It, Cultural Differences, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Friends to Lovers, I wrote a soulmate story that barely has anything to do with soulmates oops, M/M, Minor Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford, Misunderstandings, Qunari Culture and Customs, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Qun, also made up entirely, background Isabella/Merrill - Freeform, made up wholecloth, to get to the emotional parts anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-01-17 02:32:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12355656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibi/pseuds/ibi
Summary: Hissrad made a choice. The Iron Bull gets to live with it.(Alternately: There are no soulmates under the Qun.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to god this was supposed to be a short little one-shot. A few thousand words, tops. It ended up... a bit longer than that, but it IS completed. I'll try to post a chapter every Friday/Saturday.
> 
> Introducing my personal fave Inquisitor: Micah Mahanon Lavellan (mage). I'm a little sad that my first public story featuring him is an au--I do hope to write more with him in the future, though, so I hope people like him.
> 
> Mostly I just wanted to write a simple soulmates story, but then I got to thinking and I figured that a culture that doesn't allow for romantic relationships or individualism probably wouldn't approve of such things. Plus, going with the trope of soulmates having each other's names written on them, when Qunari don't have names, complicated things up for me quite nicely.
> 
> Also, for plot reasons, Elvhen, in this story, uses a different alphabet than common or most other languages in Thedas. I haven't really fully developed this headcannon, so don't ask me for details or anything.
> 
> (edit: accidentally marked this as a completed one-shot oops)

The first time the Bull has sex with the boss it’s a hard grind against the wall, Lavellan’s shirt open but still on, hands pinned up above his head and creating a delicious stretch out of his slender body. He surprised the Bull-- _“A little slower and a lot harder.”_ \--surprised in the best possible way, and then again when the Bull carried him to his bed and he stretched out with a pleased little purr, back arching and golden curls a tangled halo around his head.

“Mm, that was good,” he hummed, smirking up at the Bull with his lovely green eyes twinkling. “I think I’m almost there.”

The Bull chuckled at the sheer cheek and shifted his bulk to crouch over him, drawing another purr from the boss. “Oh, I’m just getting started,” he promised, and Lavellan laughed as he smoothed clever hands over the base of the Bull’s horns.

“I should hope so,” he teased. “You have a reputation to uphold.”

“Brat,” the Bull admonished, amused. Then he shut him up with his hands and his teeth.

He left him, eventually, completely wrung out and glowing with satisfaction, with his reputation fully intact, but the Bull feels he can’t be blamed for not seeing it that first time.

Lavellan surprises him again by seeking him out for another round. The Bull has no illusions of his own appeal out among the basra. The smaller races find him intriguing and exciting, and he’s good at making a night of pleasant memories for them and sending them on their way, but it’s a bit more than most of them are looking for long term, and he isn’t looking for long term, either, so it all works out.

He has his suspicions about the boss, pretty sure he knows what Lavellan needs, but he knows also that the guy is damnably proud. _Never again shall we submit_ , and all that. It can be difficult for guys like that, whether they need it or not.

But instead of shying away, Lavellan settles into his usual place next to the Bull behind the stairs at the Herald’s Rest, angled so that the Bull’s larger body practically hides him from view, sips his tea as he listens to the Bull give him the rundown, accepts the watchword with a regal nod, and invites the Bull back up to his room.

“Done this before, boss?” the Bull asks as he pulls the soft leather ties tighter.

“Mm, once or twice,” Lavellan demures. “So you don’t have to go easy on me.”

“Just let me work….”

The second time he has Lavellan on his front, howling beautifully as he turns his ass cherry red.

Long, wild blond curls cascade down his back and keep most of the mark obscured. The Bull catches a glimpse of stark black lines, but it has always seemed rude to draw attention to someone’s mark while he’s in the middle of fucking them--like he’s accusing them of being unfaithful or something, and the Bull isn’t into that, so he tactfully keeps his eyes averted and avoids that particular stretch of skin as he’s peppering the rest of Lavellan’s back with bites and kisses.

The Bull is slightly distracted, anyway. The boss’s control is impressive, but it always seems like a risk, playing these kinds of games with mages. The point is to get him out of his head, but a mage who loses control for an instant is a feast for demons, or so the Bull understands it anyway.

But Lavellan doesn’t even flicker, not even when the Bull gets him to that place where he floats warm and pliant.

This is the Bull’s favorite part. Lavellan curls into him, soft and sweet and trusting, mewls as the Bull wipes him down and soothes the bruises he pressed into his beautiful bronze skin. He’s as languidly affectionate as a warm cat, and he accepts the Bull’s care with pleased sighs.

“Stay,” he invites drowsily as the Bull gets him all tucked in, pillows fluffed and blankets pulled up to his chin. “At least until I fall asleep.”

“Sure, boss,” the Bull agrees readily, pleased enough to grant him anything. He shifts onto the mattress, moving his bulk gingerly until he’s certain the furniture can hold him. His weight creates a dip in the bedding that Lavellan rolls into with relish until he is curled up against the Bull’s side, draped half over his lap. He wriggles under the Bull’s arm and arches his back until the Bull catches the hint and starts petting him, long, smooth strokes from shoulder to hip.

“Spoiled brat,” the Bull teases, deep voice rumbling with pleasure, and Lavellan hums in perfectly unabashed agreement.

It’s a damned near perfect way to doze off for a few hours.

The sun creeping over the mountains pokes him in the eye at dawn. The Inquisitor’s high tower bedroom is the first to get daybreak in all of Skyhold, and judging from the lack of curtains and the way he keeps his windows thrown open and his bed directly facing east, he doesn’t mind in the least. It’s charming, even though the Bull personally would prefer a bit more sleep.

Lavellan briefly wakes up and smiles sleepily at him when he shifts off the bed, then yawns expansively and rolls over, away from him. The sheets have slipped low in the night and tangle over his hips and legs, and his hair, those beautiful tangles of wild curls, have been caught between his head and the pillow.

And that’s when the Bull sees it at last, stark black and blocky, inked deep into the flesh of his right shoulder blade as if burned there. A qunari soulmark.

Not a name, no names under the qun, just dark, thick lines in a diamond pattern, same as the Bull and countless other active Ben Hassrath have stamped into their reports countless times.

The Bull only realizes he has touched it when Lavellan makes a sleepy noise and twitches lightly. “Don’t worry,” he slurs lightly as he stretches, catlike in the slowly growing puddle of sunlight that continues to spill across his sheets. “It’s inert.”

“...Right,” the Bull says belatedly.

No soulmates under the qun, either.

Lavellan hums again, then sighs and rolls liquidly to his feet, the sheet sliding off him like a caress as he stretches his long, willowy body into a perfect arching bow, shameless and utterly unabashed in his nudity. “I’d invite you to stay for another round, but I have a meeting with Josephine in a few hours that I’d like to be able to sit during,” he says, tossing a wickedly teasing grin over his shoulder. The subject of soulmarks now closed.

Because what else is there to say, really.

“Maybe some other morning?” Lavellan continues, inexplicably inviting the Bull back yet again, and the Bull feels his head tilt into a nod without conscious thought.

He makes sure to keep his expression casual and unconcerned, and it must work because Lavellan’s smile stays warm and affectionate. The Bull automatically answers with a fond smile of his own as the boss steps closer, still distractingly nude, and obligingly bends down when Lavellan stretches up for a last lingering kiss.

“I’ll talk to you later, boss,” he says faintly. “Say hi to Josie for me.”

“Go on,” Lavellan answers with a chuckle, sending him on his way.

The Bull looks back once as he heads down the stairs, and sees Lavellan step onto the balcony to greet the dawn in all his glory (and thank decency the Inquisitor’s balcony is the highest point in Skyhold or else some lucky guardsman on the wall would get a hell of a show). Now that he knows it’s there the soulmark is like a beacon, drawing his eye back helplessly, again and again.

 

When the soulmark first showed up Hissrad couldn’t do anything about it for a while, out on an assignment for the Ben Hassrath. He told Tallis about it, who seemed exasperated at the inconvenience but just gave him some vitaar to keep it covered and told him to get himself to a Tamassran as soon as he could, pulled him from the assignment early to get it done.

It was _embarrassing_ , mostly. There were no soulmates under the qun; when the marks did show up in any other form than a slightly more acceptable qun mark, it typically meant that person was about to go Vashoth. Hissrad couldn’t think of anything more shameful, and was careful to keep it covered, but he still felt like everyone _knew_.

His mark was anything _but_ a qun mark, fine elvhen script in glittering gold. Hissrad tried not to look at it, forcibly kept himself from deciphering the foreign letters. He was glad he didn’t speak or read Elvhen and couldn’t recognize the name if he tried, but just from the sheer size of it, clustered over his heart and scrawled across his entire pec, he could tell it was a mouthful, one of those long, rambling elvhen names.

They were Dalish, then, the person on the other end of the mark, whose name was on Hissrad’s chest--he never let himself think the word _soulmate_ because he was qunari and there were no soulmates under the qun, but he had always been good at making observations, just one reason Tama sent him to the Ben Hassrath. The marks show up in the script of a person’s milk tongue, the name they were given at birth inked into the flesh of their… match. Southern city elves rarely even know elvhen, and the elf slaves of Tevinter would leave marks in Tevine. So, whoever they were, they must be Dalish, the elegant flowing script instantly recognizable even if he doesn’t understand a single character.

Dalish and young--the marks tended to show up when the younger of a pair reached their eleventh or twelfth year--ten years in the past for Hissrad, so he’d thought he was past this particular hurdle. Hissrad pictured them sometimes, despite his efforts not to, young and coltish with skinny little limbs, probably, and it struck him as patently absurd that whatever weird, demony Fade power made the marks would pair him up so unevenly.

Really just made it all the more obvious that it was bullshit.

But, bullshit or not, the mark _was_ real, and on the ship back home to get a Tamassran to help him deal with it (get _rid_ of it) he discovered that the _connection_ two linked up people were supposed to share was apparently real as well.

It was nothing so outright terrifying as having some foreigner in his head, reading his thoughts. Harder to pin down than that--more like just an _awareness_. The young Dalish whose name sat on his chest was… bright. Cheerful, curious. They had a good life, loved and comfortable, happy more often than sad or frightened.

When Hissrad lay in his bunk at the end of the day, rubbing the heel of his palm absently over the gold, foreign letters, he got the impression of sunlight pouring into a green forest clearing, humid warmth and the lazy drone of insects, the laughter of a cool, swift-flowing brook.

He always made himself pull his hand away and turn his thoughts to the qun, but he had to wonder, sometimes, what impression the little elf had of _him_.

Reaching home was a relief, and Hissrad went to a Tamassran as quickly as he could, bared the mark for her inspection and tried not to feel too shamed that it was there at all. If she was disgusted by him she kept it hidden--of course she did, she was Tamassran, but Hissrad felt grateful all the same.

“Can it be removed?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes,” she said simply. “If that is what you choose.”

He frowned a little. Tamassran were great, but they could be… annoyingly cryptic, even for a Ben Hassrath.

She gave him tea and made him drink.

He did his best not to feel frustrated. He only had to be patient. This… situation wasn’t common, but it had happened before. Tamassran would know what to do and Hissrad only needed to obey. She would remove the mark and he could get back to his job, his life. With any luck it would be like it had never happened at all.

“The qun is a choice,” Tamassran said, and, recognizing a lesson when he heard one, Hissrad straightened his back and did his best to pay attention. “Every day, when you get up in the morning, when you do your duties, when you make your reports and receive your orders, you make the choice against barbarism and chaos, the choice for order, the choice of the qun. There is nothing stopping you from making a different choice. You are not a slave.”

Hissrad frowned. “To leave the qun is to be Vashoth,” he said, and Tamassran nodded and pressed one straight, sturdy finger to the gold, looping script on Hissrad’s chest. On the other end of a link he didn’t want, a bright, coltish, young Dalish elf that he had never met and did not care about shivered with awareness.

“The basra believe that these marks are the brush of fate, but there is no choice in fate. The qun is a choice. Do you understand?”

“I do, Tamassran.”

“What do you choose?”

“Please. Remove it.”

She nodded, warm and approving, and got to her feet, the sway of her wide hips a heated distraction. “Follow me.”

It was a test, obviously. The mark showing up was a sign of something Wrong inside of him, and she had to be sure he was not so far lost that he couldn’t be salvaged. He had no doubt  that if he had chosen otherwise, if he had hesitated to do what he should, she would have had him destroyed, as would have been only proper. Only the dangerously insane would try to preserve an infection, after all. Qamek, maybe, to take his misfiring mind and make him useful again while they cleared away the mark.

But he had passed, proved he still had reason enough to know what was right. All would be well, would be as it should. Asit tal-eb.

It burned.

Somewhere far away, at the edge of Hissrad’s awareness, someone young and coltish and bright and cheerful, who reminded Hissrad of warm sunlight and tall trees and cool, laughing streams, who had been protected from pain and fear as a child should be, who he had never met and did not care about, screamed and screamed and screamed.

But eventually the mark faded and took his awareness of that someone with it. There wasn’t even a scar on his chest to show the name had ever been there at all, like it had been erased, wiped clean like chalk from a slate.

It felt like a missing tooth. When Hissrad prodded at the space where it used to sit, shocked that he could feel the loss at all, he got nothing but a numb buzzing. No more sun-drenched green forest clearing. No more cool, laughing stream.

“It… hurt them,” he said to Tamassran, hesitant to say anything at all. But it troubled him. He hadn’t been expecting the screaming, and whoever they were (and he certainly would never know _now_ )… they’d been just a kid.

“Yes,” Tamassran answered simply with a sympathetic tilt to her head. “It is terrible sometimes, what must be done.” She laid a hand on his shoulder and he took comfort from it. “Take heart in this: whoever they are, you have freed them. Instead of the yolk of fate, they now have the gift of choice. In time they may follow the mark you left them and choose the qun, and they will be all the more blessed for it.”

The mark he left them. Shit, he hadn’t even thought of that. Somewhere out in the world was a young Dalish elf whose soulmark had just turned black and dead.

“You think they might end up Viddathari?” he could not help but ask. That would be something at least. Wouldn’t it?

“It is common,” Tamassran said with a shrug. “They are still lost in ignorance and believe the marks to be fate. They come to us like dogs desperate for a leash, and we set them free, make them useful, give them purpose.” Her gaze was steady, solid, grounding. “Whoever they are, they are no concern of yours.”

“Yes, Tamassran. Thank you.”

 

The Iron Bull has not thought of his lost soulmark in years. Eventually he nearly forgot about the _bright_ , _curious_ , _sunny_ young stranger he’d rejected in favor of a life that was correct and proper within the qun.

When Seheron happened he was certain it was the last straw for him. He turned himself in to the re-educators confident that they would take his mind and remake him like clay, like a broken tool that could be melted down and transformed. Instead they repurposed him and sent him south, the start of a long road that eventually brought the Bull to the Chargers, to the Inquisition, to Inquisitor Micah Lavellan.

There is absolutely no reason to think Lavellan is the erased name that once sat on the Bull’s chest, right over his heart. He’s Dalish, he’s roughly the right age, he’s got a blackened Qun mark on his shoulder, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much.

Among the sprawling, wandering, fractured nation of the Dalish there are doubtless more than a few who receive Qun marks, and among the vast, ordered ranks of the Qunari there had to be at least one other who had to go see a Tamassran about a foreign name etching itself onto their skin in flowing elvhen letters. Nothing but coincidence, no hard evidence. Ben Hassrath draw conclusions, they don’t leap to them from pure conjecture.

He remembers the first time he laid eyes on the boss, on a stinking stretch of Storm Coast with dead raiders all around him. The fight was nothing his boys couldn’t handle, really, but the well-aimed fireball from the top of the ridge had been appreciated all the same.

So, he’d looked up from the charred corpse to see him standing there, the wind tearing  through those wild blond curls and the staff in his hand still glowing, and he’d thought, ‘ _Not bad_.’

“That him?” he’d called to Krem.

“That’s the Herald,” Cremisius confirmed, and the Iron Bull grunted.

“Knows how to make a fucking entrance at least.”

Eventually Lavellan had picked his way down to the shore and let the Bull give him his sales pitch. Cassandra glared balefully and Varrick made quips, all things the Bull has since learned are fairly standard from those two, but he had to admit, he really only had eyes for the boss, and not for strictly professional reasons, truth be told.

Everything on the Storm Coast is soggy and salt-lashed and miserable, bleeding together into the same colorless grey blur, from the clouds that hang threateningly overhead to the choppy waves that gnawed on the beach to the jagged cliffs and mountains that thrust up aggressively into the ever-present rain. Everything except him.

Lavellan had worn a pale green coat that day, as the Bull recalls, like he was trying to blend in and not draw attention to himself, but it was simply no use. All those golden curls, half-tamed and braided back on one side, all that bronze skin and the striking, bottle green, almond-shaped eyes. The plush bow of his mouth, the graceful lines of vallaslin accentuating the high arch of his cheekbones--the Bull could go on. He’d been like a golden idol wrapped in drab.

The Bull remembers looking at those green eyes and thinking of the way sunlight looks when it filters through a forest canopy.

Of course, a short while later they’d run into a Fade Rift, and, between fighting off hoards of demons (fuck you, Krem) and watching the hot piece of ass he’d just been ogling command a tear in reality to close with a wave of his fucking hand, he’d more or less thought that color ruined forever. _Fade_ Green, not Sunshine-Through-Trees Green.

Amazing what you could grow accustomed to.

He hadn’t set out to sleep with the boss. Bad idea just in general, usually, to fuck your employer, and then, of course, _mage_. The Bull didn’t touch mages. Too many demons in the bed.

But Lavellan had flirted and the Bull had flirted back, which was fun.

The Inquisitor puts on a stoic, serious face for the public and for the general Inquisition forces, the ones who need a strong figurehead to fall in behind, all tightlaced and straight-backed, proud bearing. He manages to be a near-perfect counter to Lady DeFer; if she is the perfect Circle Mage, elegant, graceful, civilized to a fault, he is the perfect apostate, proud and powerful yet always in control.

But anyone who goes out into the field with him sees a different side. At camp and on the road trudging between missions, Lavellan loosens up considerably, teasing Sera like a sibling and casually goading Solas and Dorian into nonsensical debates.

He likes to make outlandish and blatantly untrue claims about “ancient Dalish wisdom,” partly for his own amusement, partly because, in the beginning, everyone was too wary of offending him to contradict him, and partly, he confessed privately to the Bull somewhere in Crestwood, to see the vein over Solas’s right eye twitch, and because Cassandra gets so _offended_ when she realizes he is pulling her leg.

He snorts with laughter at all of the Bull’s worst puns, even throws a few truly terrible ones of his own out in response (to the utter disgust of Varric and Dorian), and the Bull reflects absently that _that_ , of all things, might be part of the reason his rules regarding the Inquisitor and mages in general started to bend.

The first time… the Bull isn’t certain he can justify the first time in a way that would hold much water, really. Tallis said to get close to him, but there were other ways to do that than a honeypot. The flirting, the casual innuendoes, the blatantly appreciative glances, had reached a boiling point. Sera threw bread crusts at them and told them to just fuck already, and Varric complained that if this were a story he was writing the readers would have all expired from the sexual tension by that point, but that wasn’t it, either.

It was the way Lavellan sat next to him in the tavern, unapologetically hiding from everyone who wanted him to be the Herald behind the Bull’s bigger body as he drew stories about him from his Chargers and seemed to hang on every word. The way he said something to Dalish in Elvhen shortly after meeting her that seemed to sooth some old hurt in her that the Bull hadn’t even known was there. The way he leaned into the Bull’s side when Krem got to the good part of a story, and tossed his head back with laughter so that his golden curls caressed the Bull’s skin.

It was watching him in battle, every movement fluid and practiced, but not nearly so economical as Vivianne or as showy as Dorian as they hurl spells at their foes. More like a dance, like mastering the magic was his greatest joy and passion. All the raw power of the Fade, and he had it on a leash. Terrifying. And sexy as hell.

So. The first time happened, and even if the Bull couldn’t justify it fully it was still fantastic, one for the memory banks, without a doubt. And then the second time took the Bull by surprise and was even better than the first.

And then he saw the mark and… what?

It didn’t have to mean anything. It _doesn’t_ mean anything. Micah Lavellan--the Bull doesn’t know what the name looks like in elvhen but it doesn’t seem long enough to match his memory of the long-gone mark. And even if it was--it doesn’t matter. There are no soulmates under the qun, and the Iron Bull has no soulmark. It doesn’t change anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please drop a comment if you liked it, and thanks very much for reading!
> 
> (Please, please let me know if I missed a tag I have no idea how to tag things and I'm scared.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been three weeks. For three weeks, whenever Lavellan came into the Tavern the Iron Bull found reason to be elsewhere. To the first casual invitation to come up to the Inquisitor’s room he responded with casual regrets. To the second a sincere enough ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ There was no third invitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, people seem interested, awesome, that's not nerve-wracking at all!

It’s been three weeks. For three weeks, whenever Lavellan came into the Tavern the Iron Bull found reason to be elsewhere. To the first casual invitation to come up to the Inquisitor’s room he responded with casual regrets. To the second a sincere enough ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ There was no third invitation.

The Inquisitor has too much class for a public confrontation, too much self respect to lie in wait in the Bull’s room, and he is too much of a professional to let it affect the work, but he is plenty pissed and it shows. The Bull can’t blame him, really, though he could do without the  pitying headshakes he gets from Varric whenever he and the dwarf cross paths.

Sera spent roughly a week stealing his small clothes and filling them with rashvine until a thoroughly exasperated Cremisius spoke to the Inquisitor, who somehow, forcibly, got the rogue elf to behave herself, more or less, though she treated the Bull to snooty silence whenever he saw her and he still didn’t quite dare sit anywhere before giving the seat a thorough examination first.

(Krem, speaking of, was not impressed either. His exact words were, “You’re a fucking idiot, chief.” The Bull doesn’t necessarily disagree.)

All in all, Tallis’s timing could not be worse, but the job is the job so he sucks it up and deals with it, and catches the Inquisitor the next time they cross paths in the training yard.

He  _ could _ go knock on his door in the tower, he’s always had an open door policy and been very welcoming of everyone who goes looking for him up there, but… no.

“Hey, boss. I wanted to talk to you.”

“ _ Did _ you?”

Alright, ouch. The last time the Bull let himself really look at those jewel-bright eyes they’d been soft and warm from good sleep and good sex, and bright with the first rays of dawn beaming in through his open window. Now, they’re as flinty hard as emeralds and just as cold, and the flat, tight line of his mouth further displays his displeasure.

But he’s a professional, always a professional when it comes to the Inquisition, and he lets himself thaw just slightly as he considers the news the Bull brings from Pol Volen.

“An alliance?” he says.

“It’s never happened before,” the Bull says, “but there’s never been a situation like  _ this _ before, either.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s… _ weird _ . I’m used to them being  _ over there _ . But the offer for an alliance is probably legit.”

Lavellan doesn’t look directly at him, turning instead to watch Cullen running the recruits through their drills. “….We’ll check it out,” he decides at last. “Who should we bring?”

The Bull sighs. He has given that question some thought and is ready for it. “Dorian is a bad idea. I know you like having another mage out with you--” to handle the barriers, near as the Bull can figure, since Lavellan always seems to forget--“and I know Dorian’s your favorite, and he’s a good guy, but he’s a Vint. Too much tension there. Probably best to leave the other mages at home, too.”

“ _ I’m _ a mage,” Lavellan points out, and the Bull dips his head.

“And I’m having a hard time swallowing the fact that they’re willing to deal with  _ you _ . Let’s not push our luck.”

“Fine. Who else?”

“Well, I wouldn’t recommend bringing Sera, that’s obvious. Varric’s at least got some experience dealing with the qun, but that was the army, and I get the feeling he’s still a little testy about what went down in Kirkwall. Your best bet will be the warriors, Cassandra and Blackwall. They’ve got the discipline to handle it without purposefully pissing anyone off.”

Lavellan’s got a tell. He taps his fingers against his bottom lip and narrows his eyes  when he’s thinking about something, weighing his options. It’s damned distracting. “Cassandra and Varric, then,” he decides. “Varric’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut when he has to, and I want his eyes with us.” Varric doesn’t miss much, that’s true enough. “When?”

“You say the word and I’ll let them know.”

 

The ride out to the Storm Coast to meet Gaat is long and mostly uncomfortable, at least for the Bull, distracted as he is with thoughts of what is to come. Lavellan asked him once if he missed being among other Qunari, but the truth is the Bull has grown accustomed to home being somewhere far, far away. He does his job, of course, and takes pride in knowing that his reports go toward keeping the people there safe, but… he’s been away a long time, now.

He only wishes he could better predict what to expect, but he knows better than to question.

He feels uncomfortably like he’s being tested, and the memories dredged up by seeing the qun mark on Lavellan’s shoulder don’t help.

At least he’s got his boys with him. The Chargers are their usual brand of professional organized chaos, and the Bull uses the excuse of keeping them in line to avoid spending much time alone with the Inquisitor. Krem isn’t impressed but he mercifully keeps his mouth shut.

But Lavellan has always quietly insisted that everyone eat together at camp, so there’s really no avoiding the dinner fire each night.  Varric, attuned to the awkwardness that lingers between Lavellan and the Bull, and unable to abide by the silence, keeps up a stream of chatter, poking at the Seeker for no apparent reason except boredom and falling back on his favorite subject, Kirkwall and the friends he left there, with little prodding.

He’s talking about those old friends when the subject of soulmarks comes up. The Bull, peeved, can only wonder if he’s doing it on purpose.

“It’s amazing we never saw it before,” he says, “Rivaini hardly ever wore pants. Or a shirt for that matter. And she wasn’t exactly shy about answering the door in her natural state should Hawke come calling in the late hours. But anyway--the minute she saw it, Daisy went all pink and set the rug on fire. I couldn’t have written a better scene. Turns out Rivaini had never figured out how to read the Dalish letters and Daisy’s was Rivaini’s birth name--which of course she had changed--and always covered up, besides..”

“So they might have missed each other completely,” Cassandra says, just a little bit dreamily, and maybe with a touch of longing as well. The Seeker is a romantic, but the Bull is willing to bet she has no name of her own. It’s not as common among the basra as it is with the qunari, where having a name or mark  is the weird anomaly, but it happens more than the humans like to admit.

“It was just a matter of time,” Varric says confidently. “Rivaini had been flirting with Daisy for years. Of course, if they  _ hadn’t _ seen each other’s names, Daisy would probably  _ still _ be waiting for her to get serious, so I guess the little hints from fate helped.”

The Bull is polite enough to not voice his doubts, but Tama’s voice is in his ears and something must show on his face because Varric gives him a sardonic little nod of acknowledgement and says, “I suppose it must all sound pretty ridiculous to you.”

Honestly, the Bull wouldn’t expect Varric of all people to sprout the fate nonsense, except, he supposes, that the romantic destiny crap sells books. The Bull has never seen it, but he can guess what Varric’s name says. Whatever the “one story Varric will never tell” is, the Bull doubts it’s a happy one.

At Cassandra’s questioning look, Cremisius fills in, “Qunari don’t get soulmarks, and when they  _ do _ show up they have them removed.”

The Bull “accidentally” elbows him in the back and ignores the resentful glare he gets in return.

“But how is that possible?” Cassandra demands, frowning deeply. The Chantry teaches that the marks are from the Maker or Andraste or something--the Bull forgets how the actual dogma goes. An infallible sign of the Maker’s will that cannot be altered by mortals, though literature is full of stories with marks covered by scars or tattoos, or lost in other ways for a dramatic reveal.

Not that it’s true, of course. Extended lyrium use, for example, can blur or fade a mark in a small number of Circle mages and Templars, and rumor has it the Grey Warden Joining erases marks altogether. It’s just that those methods all come with pretty serious side effects, and aren’t anything someone would seek out voluntarily for the purpose of getting rid of a mark.

“It’s called Asaamek,” Lavellan says unexpectedly, before the Bull can claim to have no idea and startling the rest of them into silence. He has set his dinner aside and drawn his knees up to his chest as he stares unseeing into the fire. The flames light his green eyes and cast his features into sharp relief against the darkness behind him. “No idea how it’s made, they keep that secret, like the gaatlok. A priestess puts it on and the name just… disappears.”

“How do you know about that?” the Bull asks before he can help himself.

Lavellan’s stare across the fire is flat and frank. “I found a Tal Vashoth and asked,” he says, then looks away again. “I wanted… to know.”

No one can quite figure out what to say to that, and it occurs to the Bull that he and Lavellan are the only two who know what he’s really talking about. He can imagine it, Lavellan a young man, still a child really, filled with questions about his deadened mark, what happened and why. It’s just like him to go look for answers as close to the source as he can get, a wonder he didn’t end up with the converters.

The Bull frowns. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he scolds. It’s stupid, years in the past and anyway obviously no harm came from it, but still. “Tal Vashoth are dangerous.” The Bull doesn’t like the idea of a young and clueless Lavellan seeking one out.

In the present Lavellan just rolls his eyes. “The one I talked to was an old man who just wanted somewhere quiet to sit. He had a mark, once, and gave it up for the qun, but then regretted it, years later.”

That shuts the Bull up with a guilty cough that feels too much like a confession, but no one remarks on it.

“Does it hurt?” Varric asks, clearly still trying to wrap his mind around the concept. A substance that can wipe away soulmarks, without having to become a Grey Warden or lose yourself to lyrium addiction first. The Chantry would shit bricks.

_ Yes _ , the Bull doesn’t let himself say.  _ It hurts worse than anything. _ Worse than losing his eye, worse than the blow that fucked up his knee, worse… well, not  _ worse _ than Seheron. But probably just as bad.

“Vash didn’t say,” Lavellan says, shrugging. “Hurts on the other end, though. Felt like my soul was being set on fire….”

A long, shocked silence greets this revelation. The fire pops and the Bull stares at Lavellan who stares into the flames, thinking of… the Bull doesn’t know what.

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra says uncertainly, and Lavellan treats her with a small smile.

“It’s alright, Cassandra. It’s been inert for a long time, it doesn’t affect any of my decisions.” For some reason his eyes cut sharply to the Bull when he says this, then away again as he gets to his feet. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

Judging by the looks he gets from Varric and Krem when the Bull stands a short while later he isn’t being at all subtle. He ignores them both.

Lavellan is standing outside of his tent, head tilted back to watch the stars, and he sighs as the Bull steps up. “I didn’t sleep with you because of my soulmark,” he says quietly.

“What?” the Bull says, taken aback.

“I did not sleep with you,” Lavellan repeats slowly, “because I have a qun mark and you are qunari. I slept with you because you are my friend, and you are attractive, and it was good.” He turns at last and faces the Bull, meets his gaze solid and unflinching. “I am not looking for my soulmate, Bull. Whoever they are, they made their choices a long time ago, and I have no expectation that they have ever changed their mind.”

“...They don’t know what they’re missing,” the Bull says weakly, and Lavellan smiles.

It fades quickly, however, melting away to reveal the hurt he had been covering with stoney anger. “I understand if it makes you uncomfortable,” he says, “but you could have just said.”

The Bull draws in a breath, then sighs it out in a deflating rush. He scratches a hand over the base of one horn, feeling like an imikari whose Tama has caught them stealing extra portions. “I was an ass,” he says.

“Yes,” Lavellan agrees, but some of the hurt is fading, which is relieving to see.

The Bull hates the idea of him hurt.

“You didn’t… deserve that,” the Bull says slowly.

“No I did not,” Lavellan answers steadily.

“...Sorry.”

Lavellan smiles again at last, fond and sincere, and it lights a warm glow somewhere in the Bull’s chest. “I forgive you,” he grants. “But, I  _ am _ going to bed, now. Big day tomorrow.”

“Right. Sleep well, boss.”

“Good night, Bull.”

 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t hold it, Chief.”

“Lie  _ still _ .”

Cremisius was the last to retreat, covering the others with his shield and his sword until the last moment, and now Stitches and Dalish swarm over him with bandages and potions and the warm glow of magic that Dalish doesn’t even bother trying to hide. The Inquisitor is there as well, offering another pair of hands and a poultice he swiftly mashed together out of the plants he is constantly collecting, his face grim.

“It’s alright, Krem, you did fine,” the Bull hears himself say, but distantly. The Inquisitor shoots him a searching glance. The Bull wishes he would focus on Krem.

“Sorry, Krem, but this breastplate’s gotta come off,” Stitches says. “I think your ribs might be broken.”

“ _ Balls _ .”

Lavellan smoothly shifts back and gets to his feet. “I’ll get you something for the pain,” he offers.

“Ale?” Krem says hopefully.

“Elven tea.”

“Balls.”

“I’ll put some honey in it.” He moves away, and the other Chargers fill in to create a sort of privacy screen for their injured comrade, eyeing their leader uncertainly.

Normally, when someone gets hurt and especially when that someone is Krem, the Bull takes on a more active role, scolding him for letting the enemy get the jump on him and teasing until Krem rolls his eyes and fires back with his usual sass. The Bull knows his lines but can’t seem to get himself to shift. The world has tilted and he can’t find his feet.

Krem looks dazed for the moment--the bad blow that possibly cracked his ribs also knocked his brain around a bit. Soon enough Stitches and Dalish will get him back to rights, and he’ll notice that Gaat is gone, realize what the dreadnaught blowing means. The Bull isn’t really sure how he’ll handle that.

“Here.” Woodenly, the Bull glances down and sees the Inquisitor at his elbow, offering a gently steaming tin mug. He’s always real good about not approaching from the Bull’s blind side, and he always smells faintly bittersweet, of the flowers and herbs he collects whenever they’re in the field and he as a spare moment.

Someone once pointed out that the scouts could fill the requisition orders, but he claimed he found the task relaxing.

“...For Krem?” the Bull asks, taking the cup on reflex when Lavellan offers it more insistently. His hand nearly dwarfs the battered little mug, and the tea inside is warm and smells faintly of lavender and mint.

“For you,” Lavellan corrects. He is frowning up at him, and his eyes are so, so green. Like sunlight shining through fresh spring leaves.

“I’m fine, boss,” the Bull says automatically, trying to pass the cup back, but Lavellan presses it back toward him firmly.

“You’re not,” he says, and then his eyes soften. “Please, Bull,” he says quietly, “just drink it. To put my mind at ease.”

Well. If it’s for the boss. The Bull drains the cup in a few swallows. It’s warm and sweet and sits like a stone in his stomach. He stares down at the empty mug and wonders what he’s supposed to do now.

“...Krem will be alright,” Lavellan offers after a moment. “He wasn’t badly hurt, just knocked around a bit.”

“Yeah,” the Bull agrees.

Lavellan sighs and quietly says something in Elvhen that the Bull has heard him say before, usually after a tough scrape where someone nearly died but didn’t. Dalish says it’s sort of a prayer, thanks to their Creator’s. “I’m glad,” he says. “That was… it was a bad situation, I’m glad all of our people are ok.”

“Yeah,” the Bull agrees.

“Bull, I’m… I’m sorry. About the alliance and… everything….” He trails off and the Bull can only stare at him.

“You don’t need to apologize, boss,” he says at last. He may be lost and adrift, but he can’t bring himself to regret that his boys got out alive if nothing else. Honestly that’s almost worse, but he doesn’t know how to explain that in terms a basra would understand. How long has he been broken? Since Seheron? How did he trick the re-educators into letting him go? How long has Tallis suspected and how is it possible the Bull had no idea? How long has he been lost to the qun?

“Will you be alright, Bull?”

No, honestly. Now that he’s Vashoth--officially and truly cast out--it’s only a matter of time. He’s always been good at lying, however. And he doesn’t want him to worry. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“Hm.” The inquisitor does not look convinced, but he nods anyway. “I’m going to go talk to Cassandra. There are a few things we should take care of while we’re here--but you stay with the Chargers, alright? Krem shouldn’t be running around with a head wound, you might have to pin him.”

Bull wants to protest that he’s fine to work (please,  _ please _ give him work, make him  _ useful _ ) but he’s grateful for the excuse to stay with his boys all the same. The contradictions make his head hurt. Is this how it’s always going to be?

“Sure thing, boss,” he says.

 

They return to Skyhold, soggy from the weather on the Coast and trailing defeat from the disastrous failed alliance. The Inquisitor hands his reigns over to Dennett and immediately starts toward the main keep rather than brush his mount down himself as he usually does, rubbing absently at his forehead like it pains him as he goes.

Varric follows in his wake, muttering about getting warm and dry. He gives the Bull a commiserative pat on the arm as he passes--very touchy-feely, Varric--that the Bull doesn’t really know what to do with. Cassandra had likewise offered her condolences on the Coast, in her awkward, abrupt, but well-meaning way, but neither of them-- _ no one _ really--understand the depth of what the Bull has lost. He doesn’t talk about the qun to the basra if he can help it. He’ll answer questions when asked, but he’s not a converter and has never wanted to be. He doesn’t know how to make them understand and wishes they wouldn’t bother.

Normally after getting back from the field, the Bull would head up to his room to turn his mental notes into a report for Tallis, coded and printed out in triplicate, one for Tallis to send up the chain, one for Tallis to keep for their records, one for the Bull to keep in his own files. Now, for the first time, there is no one to report to, and there never will be again.

For lack of anything else to do, the Bull goes to the Herald’s Rest and gets roaringly drunk.

“Next time I’m leaving you on the fucking ground,” Krem gripes much later as he and Rocky struggle to shift the Bull’s weight up the steps to his bedroom.

“I’m glad you’re not dead, Krem-Puff,” the Bull says. Cremisius is fully recovered and none the worse for wear, though on the ride back to Skyhold he adopted an annoying habit of mother-henning the Bull to death.

“Thanks,” Krem says as he kicks the door open. It bangs against the wall and bounces back, and Krem mutters a truly filthy curse in Tevine at it for the trouble.

“How would you even do that to a door?” the Bull mutters as they tip him into his bed. “Splinters  _ everywhere _ …. Hmm… something, something… wood. Heh.”

Rocky makes his escape, but Krem lingers. “Are you going to be alright, Chief?”

The Bull focuses his attention on getting himself turned over without getting the pillowcases caught in his horns. He wishes people would stop asking him that. “You gotta soulmark, Krem-puff?”

Krem sighs explosively and shakes his head, but he says, “Yeah. On my chest, of all blasted places.”

“You lookin’ for ‘em?”

“No.”

The Bull frowns. “Krem-puff.”

Krem just rolls his eyes. “Whoever they are, they’re looking for a different name, one I can’t go back to, not even for them. If we find each other, we find each other, and maybe it’ll all work out, but if not… I got all I need to be happy enough. So long as a certain horned, bullheaded asshole gets his shit together, anyway. Get some sleep, chief.”

He carefully closes the door behind himself as he goes.

The Bull rubs a hand over his chest, right over his heart, until he falls asleep.

 

Rocky has no soul mark (dwarves don’t often, from what the Bull understands, like qunari) and has also always been more interested in his explosions than sex or romance anyway. Skinner and Dalish both have one, but no one can figure out if they match or not, and the girls enjoy fostering the mystery too much to give it away. Stitches has one and doesn’t bother hiding it, though he’s skimpy on details. Grim had a soulmark, but it faded when his wife died, years before the Bull recruited him for the Chargers.

It’s rude to ask about them, but at the same time the Bull has noticed that typically people with names printed on them can’t wait to talk about it. Young people find excuses to flaunt them about and older people who haven’t met their match yet drop their names in conversation with a faint edge of desperation. Matched up couples wear each other’s names openly and proudly if things are good, furtive and covered if things went bad.

Varric’s name is easy to guess, but he keeps it covered--harder to guess why. If his  _ Bianca _ had died, the name would have faded, so she must still be alive, but not with Varric. Not a happy story.

Cassandra doesn’t have one and alternates between wishing for one like a wistful girl and throwing her devotion into her faith and her order instead.

Sera will drop her trousers at the slightest provocation to show off hers, and complain loudly about the dwarven runes being impossible to read. The Bull wonders why the chipper young dwarf in the undercroft hasn’t come forward, then remembers that Sera is an orphan who can’t remember her parents. Probably her birth name was different.

Blackwall is a little more difficult to figure out, but the Bull pegs him for a widower, like Grim. He’s also heard that Grey Wardens lose their names in their Joining, but he doesn’t bother to ask if that is true.

Vivienne has one, discretely hidden under her robes. She, like Krem, seems to have no interest in finding her match (probably Circle doctrine there, but he doesn’t know the details), but the Bull, interestingly, notices her… checking on it, sometimes, when she is alone. 

Dorian has one, but has never seen it. He tells the Bull the story while drunk one night, in the frank, blithely casual way he adopts when talking about something that pains him deeply. The name is in the middle of his back, where he can’t see it without a hand mirror. He asked his mother what it said and, instead of answering him, she and his father had it tattooed over. Like Dorian was a slave. Easy to guess why, now. Can’t have a future Archon with another man’s name on his skin.

Cole doesn’t have one. Obviously. He seems a little confused by them, but nothing he has to say on the subject makes any damned sense. “Why a name?” he asks. “That is not who you are. You can’t find them by looking, and when you find them you already know them, even if the name is different, even if the name is gone.”

Solas doesn’t have one, and apparently that’s weird for an elf. He’s a little defensive about it.

He isn’t sure about Red. She’s too secretive and keeps too much distance. There are rumors that it was the former Divine, the one who got blown up at the conclave, but the Bull doesn’t put much weight to them. There are just as many rumors that it is the missing Hero of Ferelden and that’s harder to dismiss for simple lack of information.

Josephine, though, is fairly obvious. She has a habit of touching her left arm, usually covered by her ruffly sleeve, whenever she’s thinking hard, or when she’s troubled and wants comfort.

Cullen is another tragedy. He has a name, but years of lyrium use distorted the characters, and he’s bitter about it, judging by the way he uses that rug to keep his neck covered at all times.

And then, of course, there is the Inquisitor, and the blackened Qun mark on his shoulder. He doesn’t seem to care who sees it, doesn’t mind talking about it, but doesn’t seem to devote much thought to it at all. He treats it the same as an old scar, an old hurt whose pain is only a memory.

He likes to drag Dorian and sometimes Solas out of the rotunda to trade spells back and forth, apparently just  for the pure joy of it. The Bull has never seen magic as a joyful thing--dangerous as shit, unpredictable, uncontrollable, sure, maybe even sexy, sometimes, the way dangerous things are sexy as hell, but never joyful--but watching him--from the battlements where he just happened to be taking a bit of sun, or from the other side of the training yard where he was putting Krem through his paces--he’s almost convinced.

Lavellan wields magic like an extension of his soul--and his soul is beautiful, bright and sparking with life. The Bull sometimes thinks that, whoever the poor Qunari is who chose the Qun over him, if they could only have  _ seen _ him, the way he looks when he holds the power of the Fade in his hands, the way he grins and laughs when a spell works well in practice, the way sunlight turns his hair to shining gold, the way he falls asleep in the garden with leaves and petals gently kissing his skin,  they never would have gone through with it.

That’s probably why they erase the marks as fast as they can.

In dark moments it strikes the Bull as pretty fucking ironic that he gave up his own soulmark to keep the Qun, only the lose the Qun anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should add a "slow burn" tag. This is going to take a little while....
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for all the early interest! I'm trying to figure out how many chapters exactly and I think we're looking at around 6 with an epilogue.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boss does not react well to the assassination attempt, and far stronger than the Bull predicted. For one thing, the assassins are completely obliterated, the first one over the wall with a force push and the second incinerated in mage fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot that it is post-a-chapter day! Here it is, enjoy! Any dialog that sounds familiar is most likely lifted straight out of canon, I hope it all flows well enough.

The boss does not react well to the assassination attempt, and far stronger than the Bull predicted. For one thing, the assassins are completely obliterated, the first one over the wall with a force push and the second incinerated in mage fire.

“...Damn,” Lavellan says faintly after. “Questioning-- right? I should have… damn.”

“Your hands,” the Bull says.

It is the closest he has ever seen the boss come to losing control, and the Bull is a little afraid to move.

“What?”

Soldiers are coming, yelling in alarm, led by Commander Cullen who barged out of his office at the first shout and is looking around wildly.

“Your hands,” the Bull repeats. “You don’t have your staff-- did you hurt your hands?” The Inquisitor never carries his staff around Skyhold, wears those silky pajama-looking things instead of his armor. He isn’t usually expecting to be attacked.

But the Bull wasn’t expecting him to want to talk just then, was trying to get to a quiet area of the battlements to deal with it without having to involve anyone else.

Lavellan’s hands are scorched and burned from channeling mage fire without a staff, but he stares at them numbly like he can’t figure out how it happened. “What did that one say to you?” he asks, sounding vaguely dazed. “That was Qunlat, wasn’t it?”

The Bull puts a hand on his shoulder and starts steering him toward Cullen. “He told me my soul is dust. ‘Course, his is ash, and his friend’s is scattered all over the ground. So, nice work.” The poison is starting to make him woozy, and he isn’t in for a fun night, but he needs to get Lavellan taken care of before he can go find a quiet corner to throw up in, and that thought keeps him on his feet.

“What happened?” Cullen demands, then, “Inquisitor! Your hands! You-- fetch a medic!”

The Bull likes Cullen. He’s a good guy, capable, smart, put together. If going off the lyrium doesn’t kill him then the Bull figures the Inquisition will be in good hands for years to come. “I gotta go tell Red that everything’s been taken care of,” he says, passing Lavellan over to the commander.

“Hey, wait,” Lavellan protests, “Bull-- he stabbed you! What if it’s poison?”

“It’s fine! I’ve been dosing myself with the antidote for weeks now.”

Lavellan does not look reassured-- more like alarmed-- but Cullen strong-arms him over to have his hands looked at and the Bull makes his escape. For some reason Lavellan’s concern lights a warm fire in the Bull’s chest and fills him with sick guilt all at once.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lavellan demands hours later when he barges into the Bull’s room above the tavern. The Bull kind of wonders how he got past Krem, but then again Krem is of the opinion that he and the Inquisitor should “talk.” The Bull does not feel that now, while he’s sweating out the last of the poison, is the right time, and fully intends to give Krem an earful later, but for now he takes Lavellan’s hand and examines his palm.

Fresh pink skin, still shiny and smelling faintly of the herbs that went into the balm. The Bull sighs in relief and presses a kiss to the center of his hand, then freezes as his thoughts catch up to his actions.

“Uh,” he says.

“...You could have warned me,” Lavellan says quietly. He does not pull his hand away, so it’s up to the Bull to disengage, feeling big and lumbering and awkward.

“You go through years of Ben Hassrath training to hide facial expressions when I wasn’t looking?”

Lavellan rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Yeah. Like that.”

The Bull awkwardly scratches at the base of one horn. “...Thanks, though. For the backup. Not that I needed it-- two guys with knives to kill _me_? That was just a formality. But you… _really_ obliterated that guy.”

Lavellan blushes. “Yeah, um… sorry about that. I usually have better control--”

“I know.”

“--I was just… alarmed.”

“It’s alright.”

The silence is crushing. Lavellan’s quick green eyes roam over the Bull, searching, but the Bull has no idea what he is looking for.

“...Sorry for worrying you, boss.”

Lavellan rolls his eyes again. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bull,” he mutters. “Are you sure you’re alright? The knife was poisoned...?”

“Nothing to worry about.”

“But I _am_ worried--”

It occurs to the Bull, suddenly, what Lavellan really needs, coming here to see him, and he feels kind of dumb for not figuring it out sooner. Must be the poison throwing him off; he’s usually a lot quicker on the uptake.

He’s not sure if he can really get it up, so to speak, but that’s not anything that can stop him from taking care of him. Thinking about it is enough to make something in his chest settle, and already it’s easier to think now that’s he’s got a goal in mind. A purpose. Something that he can _do._

With a faint sigh, the Bull settles back on the bed, his braced knee stretching out in front of him. “I’m fine, boss,” he says again, gentler this time, and holds his arms out invitingly.

Lavellan hesitates only a moment before stepping close between his legs and trailing his hands over the Bull’s chest and shoulders and up to his neck, skating his fingers over the wound from the knife-- shallow, barely a scratch, but angry red and radiating heat. The Bull puts his hands around his waist (he’s so slender he can nearly span the entire thing, and that’s distracting) and holds him steady. Tiny tremors of tension travel down the Inquisitor’s spine, and the Bull makes a soft noise of sympathy and pulls him closer to lean against his chest.

It’s easy to lift him up and get him settled in the Bull’s lap, big hands stroking steadily down the graceful curve of Lavellan’s spine. He briefly gives in to the temptation to tangle his fingers in his golden blond curls, traces down over his shoulder-- but nervously moves his touch lower when he remembers the mark there, just under the silky gray tunic.

Lavellan sighs and tips his chin to his chest. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I just….”

“Hey, c’mon,” the Bull coaxes. “You know how tough I am. Some asshole with a butter knife isn’t gonna bother me.”

“I know…. I guess I just got used to thinking of Skyhold as… safe.” Lavellan still doesn’t quite meet his eye, and the Bull frowns slightly as he starts stroking his back again. “I know it’s ridiculous,” the Inquisitor continues with a sigh. “We’re at war, and there’s a hole in the sky, and a crazy ancient Tevinter magister is trying to unmake the world and all… but nothing has ever attacked us here before.”

“...Shit. Sorry, boss.”

Lavellan’s frown is fierce and stubborn. “It is not your fault. Will they try again?”

The Bull finds he has to look away. “Not likely. Just making it clear that I’m Tal Vashoth.” As if it wasn’t _already_ clear. “Tal Va-fucking-shoth....”

It’s a surprise when the Inquisitor’s warm, familiar fingers caress his jaw and pull his face back around for Lavellan to press a quick, chaste kiss to the corner of the Bull’s mouth. Such a surprise that the Bull loses his footing for a moment and can only stare at him. There hasn’t been any flirting since the Bull fucked everything up, current positions notwithstanding, he wasn’t sure if…. Well, he just wasn’t sure.

“You’re still the same man, Bull,” Lavellan says quietly. “You’re a good man.” He sighs and curls close, resting his head lightly on the Bull’s uninjured shoulder. “You probably want me to get out of your hair. Well. Your horns. I guess.”

The Bull automatically tightens his hold around him and starts stroking his back again, firm, slow strokes like he knows the boss likes. Him leaving is… well, it’s pretty much the last thing the Bull wants. But it’s not about him.

Lavellan hums a little and arches into the petting. Obligingly, the Bull gives it to him a little firmer, pressing his broad palm into the muscles of his back.

“Is it alright if I stay for just a little while?” he murmurs softly. “Just until I’m sure you’re really alright….”

“As long as you need, boss,” the Bull answers.

Eventually he shifts them back onto the bed so that he can lean back against the headrest. Lavellan stubbornly stays pressed against this side and grumbles whenever the Bull stops petting him. Eventually he dozes off, draped half over the Bull’s chest.

The Bull sleeps only lightly himself, but considering he’d been looking forward of a night of fever and shakes it’s almost pleasant. Stoking the boss’s back, trailing fingers through his hair, keeping a close eye on him and making sure he has pleasant dreams-- it’s all a pretty fucking fantastic distraction from the last of the poison burning through him, and he wakes in the morning feeling surprisingly well-rested.

The boss has apparently been awake for a while, peering up at him with his chin resting on the Bull’s chest. “You look better,” he remarks quietly when he sees the Bull is awake. “Your color is back to normal.”

The Bull hadn’t realized it was off, or that Lavellan would be able to tell. He yawns widely into his fist while automatically rubbing Lavellan’s back with the other hand. “Told you I’d be fine,” he says cheerily.

Lavellan just smiles and reaches up to tug the Bull’s eyepatch back straight from where it had slipped askew in his sleep (and, well, that’s a little embarrassing). “I’m glad,” he says.

The Bull lightly catches his wrist, wanting to be sure of his attention. “Listen, I want you to know, whatever I miss, whatever I… regret…. This is where I want to be.”

Lavellan blinks, then smiles in pure pleasure, those little creases of joy that the Bull so loves appearing around his eyes. “That’s good,” he says, “because I don’t know what I’d do without you, Bull.”

He says it so frankly, so baldly straightforward, that the Bull is shocked silent for a beat, which Lavellan, smirking like the brat he is, uses to lean up and press another kiss to the Bull’s lips, one hand braced on his shoulder for balance.

“I should go before Josephine sends out a search party,” he says as he rolls out of the Bull’s lax grip and gets to his feet. His silky grey outfit is rumpled from being slept in, but Josie has never been able to get him to care very strongly about appearances, and he just tugs on the hem of his tunic to straighten it before roughly combing through his curls with his fingers.

He still looks pretty fucking amazing to the Bull, though. He reaches down to casually adjust his arousal, warm and half-plump from sleep. Lavellan notices and smirks a bit more (brat), but makes no other overture and the Bull doesn’t assume. It’s familiar-- the flirting, the teasing, their old pattern of one of them blatantly showing off and the other blatantly watching. The Bull has missed it.

“That researcher in the Western Approach,” Lavellan says just before he leaves. “He’s after a dragon-- I think we can give him a hand with that. Are you in?”

“Oh-- fuck yeah!” The Bull would be lying if he tried to claim that didn’t finish the job, so to speak, as far as his arousal goes, and judging by the canary-pleased smile on the Inquisitor’s face he knows it.

But he just chuckles and heads out the door, calling back, “What outrageous lies do you suppose I’ll have to tell Dorian to get him to come too?” to make the Bull laugh.

 

“It’s still there, you know.”

The Bull doesn’t think he is ever going to get used to Cole doing that. “We’ve talked about this, Cole,” he says with a sigh. He’s feeling too good to get really annoyed, heading to the kitchen to charm a nice, big breakfast out of Delphia the head cook, and then to find Krem and bash him around a bit until he learns to stop dropping his shield. He’s still warm with the memory of Lavellan sleeping in his arms, and loose from the orgasm he gave himself after the Inquisitor left. It’s gonna be a good day and not even creepy spirits can ruin it.

“Sorry.” Cole obligingly backs away, circles around, and appears again on the Bull’s right instead of his blind side. “It’s still there.”

The Bull sighs. “Close enough,” he mutters. He’s not going to ask what the hell Cole is talking about. It would just encourage him.

The boy continues anyway. “They covered it up and blocked it off, but it’s still there.”

“...Ok.”

“The trees are taller, and you can see the scars where the fires burned hot, but the forest has recovered by now, the trees are tall and strong, and he is still sunlight, golden and warm. You remember a trickling brook, but the fire melted the ice and it is now a river. The current frightens you, what if he drowns or gets carried away? But the water is warm and he knows it well, and you are strong enough to hold him. You can trust him, if he can trust you.”

The Bull… stares. There is ice in his chest.

Cole slowly wilts. “...Sorry,” he whispers. “I thought it would help. I could… make you forget?”

“ _Don’t_ ,” the Iron Bull growls.

Cole wilts further. “Sorry. I won’t. I promise.”

The Bull sighs and rubs his eye. He now has a fantastic headache. So much for his good mood. “How about you go scare Sera,” he mutters. “That’s always good for a laugh. And-- _don’t_ mention any of this shit to the boss. He doesn’t need it.”

Cole just watches him mournfully as he walks away.

Delphia just happens to unearth a jar of that Orlesian jam the Bull likes, and it’s enough to salvage the Bull’s good day, so long as he doesn’t let himself think about it too hard.

 

The dragon hunting party ends up being himself, Cassandra, and Dorian after all, though the Vint is not shy about making his displeasure known.

“I have no earthly idea how I let you talk me into this,” he snaps in between frantically casting barriers around the rest of them.

Lavellan just laughs and shoots lightning at the Abyssal’s eye. It roars and the two mages have to dive in opposite directions to avoid the flames.

“ _Ten bottles_ ,” Dorian demands.

“We agreed on five,” the Inquisitor counters.

“That was before _this_ ! It’s _scorched_ my favorite coat!”

“And the tips of your mustache, I’ll bet,” the Bull quips, eagerly shifting his grip on his axe as he watches the Abyssal circle above them.

“The _real_ tragedy,” Lavellan agrees, laughing.

“Ten. Bottles. Of your _finest_.”

“Seven,” the Inquisitor offers. “And I’ll talk you up to the commander.”

While Dorian is still sputtering about that (cute, how red and blushy he gets), Cassandra snaps, “It’s coming back around--focus, all of you!”

Before dashing back to the fray, the Bull can’t resist calling out, “Boss--you’re the _best_!”

Lavellan grins and answers by renewing the Bull’s barrier.

By the time the dragon finally falls, the Bull’s blood is pumping hot in his limbs he feels fairly confident he could fight his way through an entire army. “ _Taarsidath-an halsaam_!”

“Yes, yes, we’re very glad you’re so _happy_ ,” Dorian snipes. They’re all sweaty and scraped up and singed, but the Vint has never taken to being _dirty_ , no matter how many field missions the boss drags him on.

“I’m not gonna let you ruin this for me, big guy!” the Bull says cheerfully, hefting his axe onto his shoulder. His chest is bleeding from where he got a bit too close to the claws in the dragon’s death throes, but the wounds are superficial and he’s got so much adrenaline pumping through him he can’t even feel it. “ _Taarsidath-an halsaam_!” he shouts again, basking in the glory of it all.

The Inquisitor laughs. He is a post-battle vision, panting and sweaty and leaning on his staff, his limbs lose with fatigue and his face flushed with the thrill of victory. His hair is wilder than usual, the curls tangled and darkened with sweat, and there is dust smudged over his vallaslin. The Bull wants to go over there and toss him over his shoulder, carry him off like a conquering brute.

“Get over here and take a potion before you bleed everywhere, you madman,” he says, still grinning.

The Bull just sighs with contentment and tilts his head back into the sun. “Not yet. I don’t want anything to dilute this moment.”

“Blood doesn’t dilute the moment?” Lavellan says, but he laughs again.

“You’re both insane,” Dorian mutters.

“There’s a Fereldan Frostback in the Hinterlands, apparently been causing some trouble for a while now,” Lavellan says casually, “and rumors of a Northern Hunter somewhere in Crestwood.”

“Leave me at Skyhold,” Dorian demands. “Or I’m never speaking to you again.”

“If you are intending to take up dragon hunting as a hobby, I suggest you bring some of this material back to Dagna, see what new equipment she can make out of it” Cassandra says with her usual pragmatism. Other than a trickle of sweat down from her hairline which she wipes away impatiently, and the dust that tends to coat _everything_ on the Western Approach, the Seeker is still immaculate, like the dragon didn’t touch her at all.

“That’s not a bad idea, boss,” the Bull says, eyeing the corpse. The teeth make him pause, remembering the old qunari tradition, and he glances at Lavellan and then away, finally swiping at the blood trickling down his chest.

“There you go, Dorian,” Lavellan says consolingly. “I’ll have Dagna make you a nice dragonhide battle coat, one that will never scorch.”

Dorian twitches his mustache peevishly, unplacated, and spends the hike back to the nearest camp lecturing them all on many sins against fashion perpetuated by dragonhide outfits, starting with the offensive color. He is eventually cheered when they meet back up with the researcher and he is reminded what a font of knowledge the dragon corpse they left behind represents, but not enough to agree to come on the next hunting trip, and he and Lavellan spend the evening negotiating terms.

The Bull thinks about dragon teeth, and fire splashing off of Lavellan’s barrier.

 

The third time the Iron Bull has sex with the boss, they’re both slightly drunk on maraas-lok, fumbling and giggly with it. The Bull had ended up having to carry Lavellan upstairs--to the Bull’s room, to spare the Inquisitor the indignity of being seen stumbling through the keep, which Josephine would appreciate even if Lavellan himself likely didn’t care.

They tip together onto his bed, and then Lavellan grabs him by the horns and steers his head down for a very thorough kiss.

“How drunk are ya, boss?” the Bull asks carefully, once he manages to free his lips, and Lavellan softens, smiling up at him with fond affection.

“Not so drunk that I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but you are very sweet to ask,” he assures, and then pulls the Bull’s head back down again.

He supposes he should be better, but in this moment that’s good enough for the Bull, and he takes control quickly. Lavellan yields with an eager little moan, and the Bull groans into his mouth as his hands go to his perfect, trim little waist.

“You ever been in a corset, boss?” he asks before he can really think about it.

Lavellan laughs. “A what?”

“Orlesian thing. Fashion. Ladies wear ‘em under their dresses to squeeze in the waist.”

“You’re asking me if I’ve ever worn an Orlesian lady’s undergarment? No, I can’t say that I have. There is that ball coming up, is this something I should know for the dress code? Also: why are we talking about Orlesian fashion? Why do you still have pants on?”

Brat. The Bull growls lightly and nips at his neck, but he won’t be so easily distracted. “I’m thinking… green silk. To match your eyes. Or brocade, maybe. Yeah, gold brocade, right here, wrapped tight around you, right up under your ribs. Then you grab the bedpost, and I give the ties a good tug….” He gives Lavellan’s waist a squeeze, and he gasps a little, eyes abruptly blowing wide.

“ _Oh_. I can… see the appeal of that….”

The Bull rumbles again, a pleased little growl of approval, and presses him down into the mattress.

He wakes up a few hours later while the sky is still dark through the hole in his roof. Lavellan is snuggled up to his side, draped half over his chest in the crook of his arm, tracing lightly over the Bull’s heart with the tip of one finger, some looping, abstract design.

The Bull hums deep in his chest and the finger freezes, and he brings a hand up to cover Lavellan’s with his own. “Tickles,” he murmurs.

“...Sorry,” Lavellan whispers back.

“‘S’alright.” With a slight tug he brings Lavellan’s hand up to press a kiss to his fingertips. “Didn’t I wear you out?”

After the slightest of pauses, Lavellan slides up to straddle the Bull’s waist, his slender legs split wide by the bulk of the qunari’s torso. “Gonna have to try harder than that,” he challenges cheekily, and the Bull chuckles appreciatively as he fits his hands over his hips.

 

Life is… pretty good. Considering that they’re fighting a war to keep the world from ending with little to no idea where the enemy is going to strike next. They close rifts up and down Thedas, clean up messes from the Orlesian civil war through the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves, chase down Venatori red lyrium mines in Emprise du Lion.

And in between they fight a few dragons, which continues to be fan-fucking-tastic.

The Bull ends up spending a lot of his down time upstairs in the Inquisitor’s tower bedroom, helping him unwind from endless War Table meetings. It feels good to be able to do that much for him, to get him out of his head and let him sleep.

He discovers that, despite not being a particularly strong reader or writer (“The letters move,” he mumbles when asked, and smiles hesitantly when the Bulls tells him about people he has known and observed with the same problem) Lavellan corresponds regularly with his Keeper and clan.

“They worry,” he says with a shrug as he painstakingly scrawls out a few lines. The letters are rarely long or detailed (‘ _Went to the Fallow Mire. Corpses everywhere. Smelled terrible_ ,’ is a fairly typical example), and responses from the clan, likely knowing of his difficulty with letters (or out of deference to the scarcity of ink and paper), are similarly brief and to the point. Updates on current location, mostly, and whether or not the hunters have had much success and if the halla are well. Little mundane snippets of the life he left behind that would bore anyone else to tears.

They send him little packets of dried tea that he hoards jealously, and someone with an artistic flair has developed a habit of sending him smudged charcoal sketches of halla and aravel wagons and faces that are evidently familiar and missed, judging by the way the Inquisitor treasures each page. He teaches the Bull their names, and he carefully memorizes each one.

Keeper Deshanna has a convincing frown, but her kindness is given away in her eyes. Master Craftswoman Geriel wears her hair cropped short and has a scar on the left side of her face. The First of the clan, Nath’anel, who Lavellan introduces as his best friend, has a wide, generous smile and a mischievous streak as long as his staff.

He notices, absently, that Lavellan signs the letters to his clan in elvhen, even though he has complained to the Bull that it is actually even _harder_ for him to read his birth language, with its highly stylized characters (“The letters all look the same and a single accent mark out of place completely changes the meaning of an entire passage,” he says. “Common is ugly, but at least it’s functional.”). His full name, too. _Micah Mahanon Lavellan_. Apparently Dalish elves almost always have at least three names, and sometimes more depending on parentage and whether or not they were a foster as a child.

“Certainly a mouthful,” the Bull comments, and Lavellan chuckles.

“I have a friend whose soul mark goes up and down both arms. She hasn’t quite forgiven him for it, either.”

He isn’t shy about his correspondence, leaving his letters scattered over his desk, out in the open. The Bull can’t really figure that out at first, until he realizes that the boss simply has never felt much need to hide when he’s at home with people he trusts. The Bull does his best to respect his privacy and not snoop, all the same.

He doesn’t let himself study the looping, graceful lines of his signature, for instance, doesn’t compare or contrast them with half-buried memories of the name that once sat on Hissrad’s chest. Just about the right length though, now that he knows the whole thing.

Not that it means anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been pretty overwhelmed with the response to this, so thank you to everyone who has commented so far. I'm really really glad that people seem to like it!
> 
> (on a weird formatting note, ao3 seems to be doing an odd thing where sometimes it adds an extra space between italics and punctuation? but not every time? don't know if anyone else would be bothered by that, but I think I got them all....)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bull finds the Inquisitor on a quiet balcony, away from the glittering party of the Winter Palace. Surprising that the court was willing to give him a moment to himself, especially considering the spectacle of the Duchess being taken into custody. From a shaky beginning, hissing whispers calling him a ‘Dalish savage’ that made the Bull surprisingly irritated-- surprising since he’s more than used to the Orlesian upper crust calling him worse-- Lavellan has charmed them utterly, masked Orlesians falling over themselves to flutter and fawn and flirt with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which there is further discussion of certain soulmate conventions....

The Bull finds the Inquisitor on a quiet balcony, away from the glittering party of the Winter Palace. Surprising that the court was willing to give him a moment to himself, especially considering the spectacle of the Duchess being taken into custody. From a shaky beginning, hissing whispers calling him a ‘Dalish savage’ that made the Bull surprisingly irritated-- surprising since he’s more than used to the Orlesian upper crust calling  _ him  _ worse-- Lavellan has charmed them utterly, masked Orlesians falling over themselves to flutter and fawn and flirt with him.

And how could they not? He is…  _ beautiful _ in his uniform; the high boots make his legs look miles long, and the sash around his waist accentuates his slender frame. The deep red of the coat brings out the gold of his hair, which falls in an artful and barely tamed tumble of curls and braids over his shoulder, and he’s done something to make his vallaslin stand out more than usual. Borrowed a kohl stick from Dorian, maybe. His eyes, likewise, seem to pop, Fade green and arresting.

Rather than attempting to mask or downplay his heritage for delicate Orlesian sensibilities, he has brought it all to the forefront, wielding his Dalish-ness like a weapon before anyone had a chance to use it against him. Combined with the military correctness of the uniform showcasing the power of the Inquisition, and which he wears so well, the effect is breathtakingly powerful. Anyone wishing to call him a savage would  have to do so to his face. The Bull very much doubts that any of the glittering Orlesian nobles have the balls.

He suspects that their current little bubble of privacy is Leliana’s doing. Red was the one to direct him over to the little side balcony with a discreet word that the Inquisitor “could use his presence.”

He sees what she meant right away.

Away from scrutinizing eyes, Lavellan has… slumped, slightly. He leans heavily against the balcony railing, his head low and his shoulders tight, all the stress of the night pressing down on him. Even the tips of his ears seem to droop. No mystery why--no easy feat to bring the three powers of the evening to a stalemate and a ceasefire, not to mention the machinations of the Duchess. The Inquisitor has barely had a moment to rest since they arrived.

_ Poor kadan _ . The thought is fleeting and instinctive, and the Bull pauses a moment before filing it away to mull over later. Right now there is a more pressing need in the exhausted slouch of Lavellan’s posture.

But the instant he hears someone approaching he straightens, his spine going rigid as he turns, his face the unreadable, imposing mask of the Inquisitor.

It slips a little when he sees who it is, but he still doesn’t relax. “Oh. Bull. Enjoying the party?”

The Bull lets himself smile gently. “They ran out of those nuts I liked.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I got one of the servers to tell me where they ordered them from. I’ll look the next time we’re in Val Royeaux.”

Touched out of all proportion at the gesture, the Bull grins a little broader. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course?”

_ Poor kadan _ . Lavellan is sounding worryingly detached from himself. The Bull settles himself automatically into place, casually leaning on the rail next to him and using the same trick they pull back home in the tavern at Skyhold, the Bull’s bigger body shielding the Inquisitor from view. Lavellan blinks, but… relaxes ever so slightly, propping his hip up on the railing.

“How ya doin’?” the Bull asks, settling his voice into the low, comforting timber he uses when they’re in bed together, and Lavellan blinks again, slowly, and ponderously tilts his weight toward the Bull, as if on the brink of falling forward into his chest.

The Bull has no problem with that at all, and he’s more than ready to catch him, but at the last minute Lavellan sighs heavily and turns away.

“I’m fine, Bull,” he mutters, but it’s fairly obvious that he isn’t. The Bull doesn’t even need his Ben Hassrath training.

“Hey.” A slow roll of his knuckles down the Inquisitor’s spine, just enough strength to squeeze out a little of the tension if he lets it-- and it works; he sighs again and droops slightly, leans back into the pressure. “What’s on your mind, boss?”

Still, it takes him another moment to give in to the careful coaxing. The Bull knows he can’t push too hard. Even if they weren’t in public (and wouldn’t it cause a scandal if these Orlesian peacocks knew how sweetly the proud Inquisitor could beg-- when he felt like it) it’s always been a bit of a struggle to get Lavellan to talk if he doesn’t want to.

“I just… can’t believe Briala and Celene are soulmates,” he says eventually. “They’ve done such terrible things to each other.”

Ah. The Bull keeps rubbing his back for him, as comforting as he can be given the circumstances, but he doesn’t honestly know what to say.

Lavellan just sighs again and shakes his head. “I guess this is why the Qun says it’s all bullshit.”

“No,” the Bull replies absently. “I’m pretty sure the guys in charge just don’t like the idea of one person being more important to someone than all of society. It’s dangerous. Say you’ve got two Stens on the battlefield, supposed to be protecting some town or a caravan, only these two Stens are soulmates, and one of them gets hurt. Stens get hurt all the time, it’s just part of life, but now the other one can’t do his job ‘cause he’s too busy worrying about his mate. Two soldiers taken out of commision for the price of one.

“And, even worse, say your soulmate is  _ outside _ of the Qun….” He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the topic. “This shit, though, with Briala and Celene… I dunno. I figure that’s just another part of it. You know the soulmate thing… it’s not a guarantee.”

Lavellan shakes his head. “There’s a difference between my soulmate choosing the Qun because that’s what he has always been taught, and… this mess. Destroying people’s lives.”

“It’s the same, though,” the Bull counters gently. “Your… match chose the Qun because… because he was Qunari. It’s all he knew, kadan, he-- he didn’t know any better. Celene and Briala made their choices because they are Orlesian, because Celene is an Empress, because Briala is an elf, because they’re both so wrapped up in the Game that they can’t see anything else. Put a stupid mask on it, cover it in lace and perfume, and it’s still the exact same shit.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Lavellan mutters, but he leans to the side, into the Bull, and lets him shore up some of his weight.

Time to get his mind off of it. “You wanna get outta here?” the Bull asks, dipping his head to speak into his ear. “Figure we can get a distraction outta Sera, slip out the back. Maybe take Cullen with us, poor guy looks about ready to expire.”

Lavellan smiles a little and chuckles. “Dorian’s taking care of Cullen. Evil Tevinter Magister Pariah is almost potent enough to cancel out the allure of Blond, Buff, and in Uniform.” He nods down to the bit of garden their balcony overlooks, to where Dorian is enjoying teasing the living daylights out of Cullen, who accepts it with grace (and maybe a little enjoyment himself?) as the cost of a moment’s peace from his fan club.

“Well, how did I miss that?” the Bull muses. There’s an easy smile on Dorian’s face-- he enjoys the company of beautiful men, that much has always been clear-- and Cullen… blushes and rolls his eyes, but laughs when Dorian offers a joke, more relaxed than he’s been all night, save for the hand that keeps coming up to rub the back of his neck, where the Bull knows the blurred and faded letters of his soulmark are.

The Bull knows that the two of them play chess in the garden at least once a week, but he wasn’t aware the friendship had progressed any further than that.

Well, good for them. The Bull grins (definitely gonna have to tease Dorian about this later) then refocuses on the boss. “So, how ‘bout it, boss? Lady Mai Bawlsitch has been dying to pull something all night; I’m starting to get worried about her.”

“Now, now, Leliana’s almost enjoying herself, let’s not ruin her night by inflicting Sera on her. Besides, I still haven’t gotten that dance, yet.”

“So, you  _ were  _ serious about that?”

“Of  _ course _ .” He rolls his eyes and digs an elbow into the Bull’s side. “Don’t insult me by implying I give a damn what these people think of me--  _ my _ choices aren’t hemmed in by their Game. I’ll dance with whoever I like.”

“And you choose me?” The Bull is having trouble keeping the grin off his face.

Lavellan grins back and leans into the Bull’s chest. He seems to be regaining some cheer; still tired as hell, but not as beaten down as he had been, and the Bull is glad to see it.

“I choose you,” he confirms fondly as the Bull’s hands go automatically to his waist. “Provided you know how to lead, anyway. That dance with the Duchess earlier showcased the extent of my ability.”

“You’re in good hands, kadan.”

Smiling, Lavellan sighs and lays his head on the Bull’s shoulder. The music inside swells and drifts out to them, and they sway together, quiet and sweet.

 

“Are you certain you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but safe to say-- no, probably not.”

There’s some magic bullshit happening in the desert, a Forbidden Oasis, an old elvhen temple, and something to do with those creepy shards they’d been finding all over the place. They’d already gone through once to clear the Venatori out, and the Bull had somehow gotten roped into joining the return trip with all the mages as they explored the temple.

Mostly he figures he just can’t deny the boss anything, and Lavellan had claimed he needed the Bull along to keep him sane and from strangling Vivienne and Solas in their sleep.

So far his job has consisted mostly of holding torches steady for Dorian to study carvings, or beating off a few giant spiders while the mages threw fire and lightning around from the sidelines. He is already planning what he is going to get out of the boss for payback-- he isn’t going to be able to sit for a week, and judging from the reaction to the growled little hints the Bull gives him whenever they have a moment alone, he is looking forward to it as well.

Probably the Bull isn’t supposed to be listening in on the hushed little conversation-- Dorian had waited until they got back to camp and then pulled the Inquisitor aside for what passed for privacy out in the field-- but hey, it wasn’t his fault his hearing was better than Dorian thought. And hey, (former) Ben Hassrath. Listening in on conversations he’s not supposed to overhear is a hard habit to break.

“I just mean that… you’re getting awfully close with the Iron Bull,” Dorian continued, and well, now the Bull is  _ definitely _ interested.

“Yes, if that wasn’t obvious before, I believe Cole made it abundantly clear the last time he was out in the field with us.”

Yeah, and hadn’t the Bull wanted to throttle the little guy for that. Lavellan didn’t bat an eyelash, though, and laughed about it later. The Bull told Cole to come to him  _ privately _ if he had any more questions, which he is absolutely certain he is going to regret. Maybe he could ask Candy to give the kid a hands on demonstration.

“Sex is one thing, my friend,” Dorian says bluntly. “And I’m not claiming the big lummox is without his charms-- I’m sure  _ big _ is the keyword there--”

“ _ Dorian _ !” Lavellan is laughing too hard to sound properly scandalized.

“--but you’re starting to seem like you might actually be serious.”

Lavellan doesn’t answer for a moment. The Bull resists the urge to shuffle off guiltily. First rule of eavesdropping is, if you’re going to listen in, go all the way with it. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for some ridiculous slapstick misunderstanding.

“I’m guessing you have a concern?” Lavellan says at last. His voice has gone Inquisitor Serious.

Dorian does his best to keep his voice kind. “Qunari don’t  _ do _ serious. They don’t have soulmates.”

“I’m well-informed of the Qun’s opinion on soulmates.” More than Dorian likely knew. “My relationship with Bull doesn’t have anything to do with that. He doesn’t even have a mark.”

The Bull is surprised by the fission of… guilt, maybe, bubbling up from his gut. It’s  _ not _ a lie. He  _ doesn’t _ have a soulmark. But… doesn’t Lavellan deserve to know?

“I simply would not see you hurt, my friend,” Dorian says after a short pause, his voice kind, and Lavellan sighs.

“I appreciate the concern, Dorian, but I assure you, I’m not looking for anything from Bull that he isn’t willing to give.”

“Just a bit of fun, then?”

There is a long pause before Lavellan answers, sounding more thoughtful than the question seems to warrant, “If that is what he wants.”

“What a delightful non-answer,” Dorian comments. “Lady Montilyet will make a politician of you, yet.”

“Credit where it is due,  _ that _ I learned from my Keeper. Now, what about you?”

“Me? What on earth do you mean?”

“You and our dashing Commander Cullen, of course. Are things getting  _ serious _ there?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The Bull leaves them to their gossip and refocuses his attention on his dinner, where it was supposed to be, but his heart isn’t in it, and watching Vivienne and Solas snipe at each other only provides a minor distraction.

‘Defining’ a relationship has never been a concern. No soulmates under the Qun, no romantic relationships, either. No sex for love-- a quickie with a friend or comrade was one thing, but once it went past a certain point it was best for everyone to break it off. Go to a Tamassran and let her sort you out, everything back to normal.

Looking at himself from a Ben Hassrath perspective, it is easy to see that he is already toeing that line. He would have had to bring himself in-- if he were still in fact Qunari, that is.

He  _ should _ try to create some distance. The boss has his full attention for as long as he needs it, that goes without saying, but it shouldn’t be difficult to gently direct him toward someone else. Dorian would be the obvious choice; they’re already close friends and the Bull recalls some minor flirtation between them in the early days, back in Haven. Of course, now Dorian seems to have the attention of the commander, and he seems happy, which the Bull would hate to mess up, but there are other people out there, other members of the Inquisition-- or even someone outside Skyhold, that might be good for the Boss, someone who doesn’t have anything to do with work.

The only problem is… he doesn’t want to. The Bull knows the Qun, knows the teachings of Koslun. Tal Vashoth or not, he still tries to hold himself to those standards-- as much as possible, anyway. The only alternative is madness.

He’s slipping. This is dangerous.

But all the same, he looks at Lavellan and thinks  _ kadan _ . There’s some wiggle room there. Kadan can be your best friend, a trusted comrade. It means your heart, something necessary and vital, the word Qunari use instead of ‘soulmate,’ and that can mean many things without getting romance and love mixed up in it. But, liar the Bull might be, by training and trade, but he has always known the importance of being honest with himself.

He automatically shifts to the side when Lavellan settles next to him with his own dinner bowl, and accepts the extra portion he hands him. The Bull will say this for tromping around Thedas with the Inquisition: at least the grub is good. His Chargers are talented when it comes to scraping a meal together out of rations and dried meat, but the boss seems to have a supernatural ability when it comes to foraging up something fresh and tasty, no matter where they are.

“Everything alright?” Lavellan asks quietly.

“I’m good, boss,” the Bull answers, mostly out of habit.

Lavellan sways sideways to nudge the Bull’s arm as he eats, and the Bull automatically reaches out and starts rubbing his back. The corners of Lavellan’s eyes crinkle in amusement.

“Thanks again for coming with us,” he says. “I know it’s boring, running around after four mages.”

The Bull chuckles and shakes his head. “Never boring, boss. Not with you.”

They don’t share a tent in the field, partially out of deference to their companions, who would no doubt complain about how much they  _ don’t _ need to hear the two of them, but also maybe an effort at being discreet around the various scouts and requisitions officers also milling around camp.

Either way, they do tend to be the last to turn in for the night, lingering together by the fire long after everyone else has wandered off to their bedrolls, no one but the scouts on night watch for company.

It’s cozy. Lavellan leans against his side and the Bull puts an arm around him, and Lavellan points out constellations and gives him the Dalish names for them and shares some of the stories he remembers being told, and teaches him Dalish tricks for navigating by starlight. In return, the Bull will tell him what he remembers of the studies he’s read back in Pol Valen about the stars’ movements. Entire branches of the priesthood have spent lifetimes mapping the skies using giant glass lenses, and the Bull has always found it fascinating.

“So… how do Qunari show that they are serious about each other?” Lavellan asks, and it would be a perfectly casual question if not for the conversation the Bull overheard earlier.

“We don’t,” the Bull answers, unapologetic, and Lavellan just nods like that is exactly the answer he was expecting and tucks his knees up to his chest like he’s cold.

The Bull rubs his back. “There is one old tradition,” he says quietly. It’s such an old tradition that pretty much no one does it anymore, and not just because dragons’ teeth are relatively hard to come by. The Bull heard about it from an old friend, long, humid nights on Seheron and making childish plans to go dragon hunting together, as if they would ever have the time. And then Sataari went and got himself killed in that ambush.

“You get a dragon’s tooth and split it in half, make it into a necklace and each person gets one side. That way… no matter how far apart you are, you’re always connected.” He hesitates a moment, then says, quiet, “We don’t have soulmates, but we do have this. For when there is someone you want to stay connected to, no matter what.”

“That sounds nice,” Lavellan says, smiling a little.

“What about your people?” the Bull asks, only partially to deflect. “How do the Dalish do things?”

Lavellan looks away, a short laugh huffing out of his chest. “Ah. A lot like humans, I suppose. Couples that wish to commit to each other fully will exchange tokens and be wed by the Keeper, and there are vows and things, promises to walk the paths beyond the Veil together. But…. my people take the soulmate bond very seriously. Not every bond is romantic or sexual, of course, but no other relationship is considered as important. Half the point of the Arlathvhen every ten years is so the young people from different clans can meet and find their mates.”

He pauses a moment, and in the firelight he looks far younger than his years. “It’s rare,” he says, and anyone other than a (former) Ben Hassrath agent might buy into the light, casual tone he puts on, “for people who haven’t found their soulmate to marry. You can’t fully commit to someone who is waiting for someone else, after all.

“And there is something of a stigma against people who don’t have a mark-- it’s much rarer among the People than it is with other races, to not have one; I’ve only ever met one other. They chose to leave their clan and lived alone. Most Dalish see it as a mark of shame, you see. We believe that soulmates are two people whose hearts have been swapped by the Creators. That’s the word you call your mate,  _ ma vhenan _ , my heart. So if you don’t have a mate, you must not have a heart.”

Oh. And for someone like Lavellan, who had a mark and a mate, but was rejected, his mark turning black and the bond between them fading away…. The Bull is willing to bet it isn’t anything good. Best case scenario would be pity, and few if any opportunities to form romantic connections among his own people. He strokes his back and tries to think of something comforting to say.

“I’m sorry, kadan,” is the best he can come up with.

Lavellan smiles and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault, Bull. And anyway, it’s fine. My clan is not so isolated as others, and exposing ourselves to… differing viewpoints has been good for us.”

It certainly explained a few things the Bull had been wondering, though. Like why a guy who loves and misses his family as much as Lavellan misses his clan would travel so far away from them to attend the conclave. Sometimes love isn’t enough to make up for deep hurts, and distance is easier.

“How old were you?” he asks, not sure where the question comes from and dreading the answer a little. “When your mark showed up. How old?”

“My eleventh summer, I think,” Lavellan answers with a shrug, not quite looking at him. “Keeper’d never seen a qun mark before. She worried, but I was just excited to have one at all. And then… about a month or so later….”

It had been a humid summer night when Hissrad first noticed the looping elvhen letters on his chest. And roughly three weeks before he could get off of his assignment and back to a Tamassran. “You said it hurt? The Asaamek?”

Lavellan nods, slowly, remembering. “I was with Luc. We were trying to find blackberries. And then my mark started to… to burn. Some hunters had to carry me back to camp, the screaming scared away all the game for miles, but Keeper didn’t know what to do.”

The Bull put his arm around him. “I’m sorry.”

Lavellan just shrugs. “I survived. And Keeper thinks that the shock of it made my magic stronger-- it developed very quickly after I recovered. While the other children of my clan were comparing marks and searching for their mates, I practiced and studied.” He holds out a hand and tiny, colorful sparks dance between his fingertips.

“I would not have been half as dedicated a student to magic if I had a mate, and I could not in good conscious leave them to attend the conclave, and an active soulbond would be a liability to the Inquisition-- not to mention there’s no telling how the Anchor would affect them.” He smiles up at the Bull, and it damn near breaks the Bull’s heart. “It hurt, yes, but… if things had happened any other way, I most likely wouldn’t be here. And I wouldn’t have met you.”

The Bull kisses him, because what else can he do, and pulls Lavellan a little closer, lets him lean into the solid strength of his chest-- hey, it’s late enough and the scouts aren’t paying any attention to them, and they all adore Lavellan anyway; they don’t care who he snuggles up to. The boss makes a quiet, sleepy sound when the Bull’s palm presses over the deadened soulmark on his shoulder, but he might have already dozed off when the Bull whispers into his hair again, “Sorry. Kadan….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan isn't as unbothered by his deadened soulmark as he likes to pretend, it would seem.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this installment! We've passed the halfway mark and things kickoff next chapter, so to speak.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...I had a soulmark,” the Bull says slowly. “Years and years ago-- I was a young man, just through my training. I went to a Tamassran and she gave me the Asaamek to remove it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's chapter day! I almost forgot, but here it is! I'd like to reiterate that this story IS COMPLETE, I'm just posting it slowly because I like drawing out the torture.

Adamant happens.

The Bull may or may not insist (quietly and politely, sure) on being on the Inquisitor’s personal team, but he definitely regrets it when the world opens up and they fall face-first into the Fade.

“This. Is. Shitty,” he declares. He is going to kick Krem’s ass.

“I’ll protect you from the demons, Bull,” Lavellan promises sweetly. He sounds way too cheerful, looking around like he’s on some kind of pleasure tour of Demon Town, and the Bull glares at him.

“You should have brought Solas,” he grouses. “Or Dorian. Or _Cole_.”

Lavellan rolls his eyes. “‘ _You’re not charging into a fucking Grey Warden fortress without me, boss,'_ ” he says, lowering his voice dramatically to mimic the Bull’s baritone rumble.

The Bull just curses at him. “I didn’t know you were going to make a pitstop in fucking _Demon Town_ , now did I?”

“You two are the weirdest soulmates I’ve ever met,” Hawke’s Warden friend Alistair says, eyeing them.

“I’ve met weirder,” Hawke mutters, sharing a significant look with Varric that makes him roll his eyes and shake his head dramatically.

“We’re not soulmates,” Lavellan says shortly while the Bull is still embarrassingly bugeyed and stammering.

“...Are you sure?” the Grey Warden says skeptically, and the Bull could honestly take his head off right that instant and no one would even have to know. He’d blame it on a Fade demon, really sell it, make it believable.

“Let’s get moving,” Lavellan says.

As far as horrific fucking experiences go, it’s pretty much the worst, fighting their way through literal nightmares without ever knowing where the next attack is going to come from. And then the taunting starts.

While the Bull’s skin is still crawling with thoughts of that thing _wearing_ him like a puppet, it starts on the boss, saying something in elvhen with a voice dripping in mockery that makes Lavellan’s jaw clench.

“Who are you trying to fool, dalen?” the demon purrs after whatever it’s first shot was. “You cannot lead them. Your own clan practically fall over themselves to send you away-- your own soulmate didn’t want you.”

Lavellan has become so tense it is a wonder he can move, his hand white-knuckled around his staff. “Shut. Up,” he growls from deep in his throat.

“Easy, boss,” the Bull murmurs, wishing he could wrap him up in his arms, like this was just a night terror that he could sooth away.

The demon chuckles, a sound like blood dripping into swamp water. “How do you hope to protect him, qunari? Don’t you remember, how couldn’t wait to get rid of the bond? The very first thing you ever did to him was to damage him beyond repair-- you cannot protect. You can only destroy.”

“Don’t listen to it,” Lavellan snarls. “Let’s just find it, kill it, and get out of here.”

Of course it isn’t that simple. The Bull gets Varric and Blackwall through, but when he turns back for the boss, the nightmare stands between them, bigger than anything.

The Bull is terrified. He doesn’t want to _be_ here, his mind isn’t strong enough to handle the raw Fade, and he longs for _reality_ so intensely that it hurts, something that he understands-- something that he can hit.

But he can’t just leave Lavellan. He got lucky the first time, falling into the Fade and then tumbling back out again when everyone else at the conclave, even the Divine herself all perished, they know that now, the memories recovered as they made their way through the twisting green paths. People don’t get that lucky twice. The Bull might as well tear his own beating heart from his chest and throw it on the floor.

But there isn’t anything he can _do_ . “ _Kadan_ !” he yells, helpless. He has one hand on the hilt of his axe-- he can draw it away, maybe, give them space to make it through the rift. He’d _die_ , obviously, and the thought of dying here, his corpse left behind to be a playground for demons, is enough to turn his brain to gibbering mush-- but Lavellan would live.

Past the terrifyingly huge form of the nightmare, Lavellan meets his eyes. “ _Go_ ,” he shouts, then swings his staff around, a move the Bull has seen him do a thousand times before, the graceful dance of his magic achingly familiar, and hits the Bull right in the chest with a force push that shoves him straight through the rift.

He falls. There’s a sizzle against his skin as he passes through from one world to the next, the Veil, he guesses, and then he lands flat on his back on the battlements of Adamant fortress.

Varric, who was at least quick enough to get out of the way and not get landed on, is at his side at an instant, Bianca in hand. “Where are they?” he demands. “They were right behind you, weren’t they? Where’s the Inquisitor-- where’s Hawke?”

The Bull brushes him off and rolls painfully to his feet (his braced knee _aches_ ), staring up at the rift. It’s too high up for him to just go back through-- and if he’s honest he’s not sure he could gather the will enough to force himself to try, doesn’t even know if they would survive trying to cross over without the Boss and his mark-- the Anchor.

“C’mon, kadan,” he mutters. _Don’t leave me alone_.

It hurts to look directly at a rift, that’s something they’ve all known since Haven, not the same way staring at the sun will make you blind, but more a headache that starts somewhere in your temples, like your brain is buckling under the strain of trying to understand what you’re looking at. The Bull grits his teeth and stares anyway.

And then, finally, a single figure bursts through-- no, two people, tangled up together. Warden Alistair has the Inquisitor tossed over his shoulder, Lavellan still firing spells from his staff. They land in a heap.

“Close it!” Alistair says. “Inquisitor! Close it, now!”

There is an anguished look on Lavellan’s face, and the Bull can guess why.

Hawke isn’t with them.

But he throws up his left arm and lets the power of the Anchor crackle through him. There is a concussive burst that knocks them all back a step, and a blinding flare that forces them all to look away, and then the rift is gone.

“....Where’s Hawke?” Varric asks again, in a small voice.

Lavellan bows his head.

The Bull tries to go to him in the commotion that follows, but between the Grey Wardens and the Inquisition forces there just isn’t time. Varric runs off in his grief, and it’s clear by the guilt on Lavellan’s face that he wants to follow, but there’s too much for him to do, he still has to play the role of the strong Inquisitor, make declarations, give orders, let Cullen and Leliana give him updates on how their people made it through the battle and what happened to the dragon after they fell out of the world.

The Bull catches his eye and nods reassuringly before going after the dwarf. This at least is something he can _do_ , and after the mind-melting horror of the Fade he’s desperate for action-- any action, even chasing down a smart-talking dwarf before he can do something horrifically dramatic, like throw himself from the battlements or something.

He finds Varric in a quiet corner of the conquered fortress, seated on a crumbling step with his head down and his hands clasped before him.

“How the hell am I going to explain this to Blondie and Broody?” he asks when the Bull draws near, not looking up. His voice, normally whiskey smooth, has turned rough, like his grief is taking the form of a bunch of tiny rocks tumbling around his throat.

“Hawke’s mates?” the Bull guesses as he levers himself down to sit beside him. A double soulmark is rare but not unheard of.

But Varric snorts a little and shakes his head. “Not exactly. Hawke didn’t have a soulmark-- I didn’t put that in the book. They asked me not to. And Blondie was a Warden-- they lose their marks in their Joining. Broody was a Tevinter slave, so his mark was tattooed over.”

Talking seems to help, for all that the subject doesn’t seem to have much to do with anything. Varric grounds himself in the words, in thinking about his friends.

“Thought you said Hawke and the apostate broke up?” the Bull prompts.

Varric nods. “They did. Hawke didn’t like being lied to, couldn’t get over it, in the end. But they were still _something_ . Even without marks, even after breaking up. They were _something_.” He heaves a sigh and shakes his head. “I never should’a brought Hawke to Skyhold,” he says. “I knew something like this was going to happen-- Hawke… truth is, Hawke lost a lot in Kirkwall.”

The Bull pats him on the shoulder, because there isn’t a whole lot to say and Varric is a touchy-feely guy. The dwarf rocks with it, but twitches his mouth into some semblance of a smile and gets to his feet.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Tiny. And you can tell his Inquisitiveness I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’ve got some letters to write….”

“We’ll get a drink back at Skyhold,” the Bull offers, and Varric nods.

“Yeah. Sounds good.” He starts to walk away, but then turns back. “What that demon said, about your bond. Is it true?”

That’s a fair enough question.

The Bull nods slowly.

“And let me guess-- you hadn’t talked to Lavellan about that yet.”

The Bull shakes his head.

Varric sighs deeply. “Well, he knows now. Have fun with that one, Tiny.”

Yeah. The Bull hadn’t gotten around to thinking about that yet.

But then Krem finds him to report in-- the Chargers handled themselves well among the rest of the Inquisition’s forces, but they do have a few wounded, and Rocky may or may not be concussed-- and he’s pretty busy, too.

No one can call him out for using work as a distraction except himself.

 

Lavellan comes to his room the night they return to Skyhold.

He’s seen the boss around on the long trek back from Adamant, but never close up, and they haven’t had a chance yet to talk. He always seems to have one or more of his advisors around him, or a thunderous frown on his face as he slowly works his way through a written report. The Bull suspects he’s not the only one using work as a distraction, but Lavellan has been running himself ragged.

Now that he’s close enough to get a good look, it’s clear the Inquisitor hasn’t been sleeping. Dark circles line his eyes and his bronze skin has taken on a sickly pallor. His hair hangs in lank tangles around his shoulders.

“Boss,” the Bull begins, but Lavellan cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” he says. “Just… take me out of my head. Please. I don’t want to think anymore, just--”

“Sure, boss,” the Bull sooths, drawing him close to lean against his chest. He can feel the tiny tremors running down Lavellan’s spine, the uneven huffs of his breath against his bare skin as Lavellan struggles for control. “Anything you need,” he promises. “Tell me your watch word?”

“It’s katoh. _Please_ \--”

“I’ve got you, boss. I’ve got you….”

It takes most of the night to get him even close to where he needs to be. He fights and struggles against him the whole time, but never comes close to saying _katoh_ , and wails and curses if the Bull ever tries to back off. They’re both sweating and exhausted when the tension finally breaks, and as the Bull gently eases him back onto the bed, Lavellan trembles and then starts to cry, great wracking sobs that tear through his entire body.

The Bull holds him through it, lets him cling to him and hide his face in the crook of the Bull’s neck, strokes his back, rubbing his knuckles up and down his spine with a firm, even pressure. Through it all he keeps up a steady stream of low, comforting murmurs.

He tells him how beautiful he is, even though his face is red and blotchy and covered in tears, and how strong, and how proud the Bull is of him, and Lavellan sobs and sobs until he runs out of strength.

When he finally falls asleep, still hiccupping softly with tears, the Bull guards his rest and keeps him cradled against his chest.

The Bull wakes from a light doze some hours later to the feeling of Lavellan trying to slide out of his grip.

“Where’re y’goin’?” he slurs, frowning in confusion, automatically tightening his arm around him. Lavellan’s face is still pale and blotchy from his tears, and his fingers tremble against the Bull’s arm as he tries to pull away. He shouldn’t be wandering around alone after the night he’s had, and the Bull’s every instinct is telling him to wrap him in a quilt and put him in front of a fire and brew him gentle tea to drink.

“I have to go,” Lavellan says. His voice is wrecked from crying all night.

The Bull catches his wrist-- his hands are like ice and the Bull automatically presses them between both of his to warm them up. “No-- kadan, stay. Please.” It’s easy to pull him back close, he’s bigger than him, and so much stronger, but Lavellan cringes back.

“Let me go,” he orders, a hint of Inquisitor steel creeping into his warbling voice.

“Please, boss,” the Bull says. “Let me take care of you, please, stay here.”

“What did that demon mean?” The question is enough of a shock that he lets go of Lavellan’s hands. He doesn’t dart away, though, just settling back on his heels on the bed, clasping his hands together so tightly that they tremble as he looks at the Bull.

The Bull slowly sits up and stares back.

“It said you couldn’t wait to get rid of your bond,” Lavellan says after a heavy moment of thick silence. “That the first thing you ever did to me was to damage me. What did it mean, Bull?”

This isn’t the right time for this conversation, not while Lavellan’s emotions are still all over the place from the session only hours ago. But apparently they’re doing it anyway.

“...I had a soulmark,” the Bull says slowly. “Years and years ago-- I was a young man, just through my training. I went to a Tamassran and she gave me the Asaamek to remove it.”

Lavellan swallows thickly, a barely visible tremble running through him from head to toe. But, as the Bull watches he is welding his spine into a straight steel bar, the posture he adopts among strangers and enemies when he must play the part of the powerful and intimidating Inquisitor. “What did it say?” he says, and the Bull gets a faint impression of how the prisoners must feel when he sits in judgement of them on his fancy chair .

“I don’t know,” the Bull says, answering that tone with the one he used to use when giving verbal reports to Tallis. No emotion, all facts. “It was written in Elvhen.”

“Was it my name?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you suspect.”

The Bull takes a deep breath and lines up the facts. “The timeline seems to match up, from what I can tell, based on our relative ages, and when you said your mark appeared. I’ve always known that...  whoever they are, they are Dalish, that’s obvious from the language. I’ve seen your signature, the way you sign the letters to your clan with your full name in Elvhen, but I don’t… I never let myself really study the mark, and it was a long time ago; I don’t know for _sure_ that it’s the same.”

Lavellan waits, jaw tight, knowing there is more.

The Bull has to look away. “I didn’t…. The bond wasn’t there long enough to fully develop, and I leaned away from it, mostly. I didn’t want to know. And anyway you-- _whoever_ it was, they were still a child. They’d be a completely different person now, that only makes sense.” Sometimes the Bull regrets that he missed it, gave up his chance to bear witness to that development, but he’s old enough to have plenty of regrets and knows how to live with them.

“Sometimes,” he says slowly, a confession, “when I look at you, I remember what it felt like, a little.”

“But you don’t _know_ ,” Lavellan says.

“There is no way to be sure.” No way to undo the Asaamek, no way to go back and make a different choice. Instead of telling Tallis he could hide the mark, somehow. Instead of getting on the boat to get to a Tamassran he could slip away, go Tal Vashoth fifteen or so years early, make his way south, running from the Ben Hassrath the whole way.

No way of knowing if he would, if he could. He doubts it. He is also a different person now, and remembering who he was as Hissrad, who he was even a year ago, before the Inquisition… he doesn’t find it likely.

The Inquisitor nods once, rolls gracefully to his feet, and starts collecting his clothes.

“Kadan,” the Bull says, and is taken by surprised by how rough and uncertain his own voice sounds.

“Don’t,” Lavellan answers sharply.

The Bull closes his eyes and bows his head. Unwilling to watch him walk away.

 

“Well, you’ve certainly made a mess of things.”

“Thanks, Dorian.”

He is flat on his back on Dorian’s bed, watching the ceiling spin in time with the slightly-too-much wine sloshing in his belly.

Dorian tuts and pours another generous glass, though this one he keeps for himself. He’s been nursing the Bull through his melancholy for the past  few hours, so he deserves it.

There was a time, not too long ago, when he and Dorian might have been something. The mage is too pretty by half, and even through the Qunari versus Tevinter sniping that made up the bulk of their early interactions there had been a spark there. In another world, maybe. One without Inquisitor Micah Lavellan’s pretty Fade Green eyes. One where Commander Cullen didn’t blush so beguilingly when Dorian flirted.

Here and now, the ‘Vint has somehow been slotted into the person the Bull goes to tell his woes to and get drunk with. Cassandra has better things to do, Blackwall wouldn’t know what the fuck to say, and Varric, the only other likely candidate, would be too tempted to put the whole mess into a book or something, and the Bull is fairly certain that Lavellan would _never_ forgive him if that happened.

Dorian loves gossip, but doesn’t usually spread it around, and he keeps his room stocked with excellent wine that he doesn’t mind sharing for a juicy tidbit. Plus, it’s likely that Lavellan has already been to talk to him and do the Agony Aunt thing, or will eventually, and since he’s pretty studiously avoiding the Bull this is the only way he can think of to check up on him. He forgets to eat sometimes, and never sleeps enough. The Bull worries, no matter how many times he tries to remind himself that it isn’t his place or his business anymore.

“Do you think he really _could_ be your soulmate?” Dorian asks, and the Bull throws an arm over his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he says, for what feels like the thousandth time. “It’s… possible. Given the evidence. But there’s nothing conclusive. No way to know for sure.”

“Well… does that matter?”

The Bull grunts inquisitively and shifts his arm enough to peek at Dorian through his good eye.

Dorian gives him an impatient look. “You aren’t the only two in history to have a malfunctioning bond, Bull; you aren’t even the only two in Skyhold.” He glances away and toys with his glass. “I felt the bond for a few years after my parents had the name covered up like a dirty secret, but never particularly strongly. At some point in my twenties it started to… fade. That’s around the time I did my most inspired work in the mission of disappointing my father. There’s barely anything there anymore, just… whispers. When I dream.

“I don’t know if the trouble is on my end or his, to be honest. Indiscretions of my youth creating complications-- or perhaps he decided he didn’t like the feel of the man fate saddled him with and pulled away. For all I know the name under the tattoo has faded away and there’s no one out there for me, anymore; he could have died in the Blight ten years ago-- plenty of others did, or he joined the Wardens.”

The Bull wonders at the likelihood of the Commander being at the other end of Dorian’s misfiring bond and quickly comes to the conclusion that the odds are too difficult to calculate. Too many variables, not enough facts. Not too unlike himself and Lavellan.

“Must make it difficult on you and Cullen,” he comments sympathetically.

“Actually, no, it doesn’t,” Dorian answers. “I can’t speak for the Commander, but I’ve thought long and hard about this, Bull. There are many chances and choices that my parents denied me with their actions, but I decided a long time ago that I could either spend my days lamenting what could have been or I could take what joys and pleasures from life that are still available for me.”

He pauses a moment, studying his drink, the dark, rich red of his prefered vintage, the fruity, mouthwatering aromas released into the air with every swirl of the glass. “I have no idea how long my dalliance with the Commander will last, if the relationship will survive the end of the current conflict or even to the end of the year. Given our respective circumstances it seems unlikely. I still fully intend to return to my homeland, and I doubt Tevinter would be particularly welcoming to him, even in the unlikely event that he should somehow choose to come with me. But I’m happy now. We don’t have to be soulmates to make each other happy, for however long we last.”

The Bull frowns and levers himself up onto his elbows so that he could look at the mage seriously. “That’s not right,” he says. “You deserve to be happy, Dorian, you deserve the real deal, not just… taking what you can get.”

Dorian smirks a little and drains his glass. “ _Everyone_ takes what they can get, Bull. Fairy tales aren’t real, even for those rare few blessed with a fully functioning and visible mark-- just ask Varric. So, you can’t know for sure-- you’ll probably _never_ know for sure. Do you have to be sure to be happy? To-- well, to _love_ each other?”

The Bull looks away. _Love_ still seems like… too big of a concept for him. And anyway-- “It seems to matter a whole lot to him,” he says, laying back against the mattress.

Dorian heaves a frustrated sigh. “Well. It is a hell of a thing to keep from someone, Bull.” Leaning over, he pat’s the Bull’s ankle, the first bit of him to come into reach. “Give him some time.”

“Has he been by to talk to you?” the Bull asks carefully.

“...Not yet.”

“You’ll… check on him won’t you?”

“Oh, Bull, we’re _all_ worried. Cole has apparently been stalking him with baked goods, Josephine lays out a banquet for every War Room meeting, and Sera reportedly tried to fire soup at him using her bow-- don’t ask me how. But it’s not just him we’re worried about, you know?”

The Bull frowns and grunts, not entirely sure what he means, but at that moment someone knocks on Dorian’s door.

“Dorian, do you have a moment-- oh.” The Inquisitor stalls in the doorway, staring at the Bull on the bed.

The Bull stares back, caught halfway between sitting and reclining. “...Micah,” he greets roughly, belatedly.

“Ah,” Dorian says, looking back and forth between them.

Lavellan startles visibly and draws back. “...Um. Forgive me, please-- I didn’t mean to intrude.” With a stiff and far too formal bow, he backs out of the room and draws the door closed.

The Bull gets the sheets briefly tangled in his horns as he flails up off the bed to go after him.

“Ahm--!” Dorian says, mildly alarmed, but he quickly gives up as the Bull crashes gracelessly out his door, settling back to pour himself another glass of wine. They’ll figure it out.

“Boss, wait.” The Bull catches up with him on the covered walkway above the garden, just before he enters the keep proper. He hesitates, a hand on the door, but evidently decides he would rather have this confrontation with as small an audience as possible and not right in the middle of Vivienne’s seating area.

“What is it, Bull?” he asks quietly, as if he expects the Bull to have some mundane request for a fetch-and-carry mission the next time they’re out in the field. But he very studiously doesn’t look at him, and that hurts.

The Bull stalls. He hadn’t really been expecting to get this far and he’s not really sure what to say. Other than ‘sorry’ and ‘please.’

Well. That’s probably as good a place to start as any.

“I’m sorry-- boss. I--”

Lavellan sighs and shakes his head. “It’s fine, Bull. You said it yourself, remember-- you didn’t know any better.” The bitterness in his voice is painful to swallow. He still won’t look at the Bull.

“Not just that,” the Bull says quietly, wincing. “Kadan, please--”

He cuts him off with a sharp, angry gesture. “I already told you-- I am not looking for my soulmate; I do not _want_ a soulmate, I don’t--!” His voice breaks and he cuts himself off abruptly.

The Bull wishes desperately to take him in his arms, but he strongly suspects that doing so will get him set on fire, or force-pushed off the ledge.

“Do you have any idea,” Lavellan whispers fiercely, “how long it took me to convince myself that losing my mate wasn’t going to kill me? That I didn’t… _want_ it to-- that I wasn’t _half a person_ without them? And then-- _you_ , and I-- Fen _endhis_ , Dread Wolf _take you_!”

It is physically painful to watch him shake, to watch him swallow back all that hurt and all that anger and bottle it back up behind a cold, stony front. Hurts most of all to realize that he is no longer one of the privileged few who gets to see him with his walls down.

“Kadan,” he says quietly, pleadingly.

“I keep coming back to the timing, Bull,” Lavellan says. He has mastered his emotions and now he just sounds weary.

“Timing?”

“We didn’t start sleeping together again until after the Storm Coast-- after the dreadnaught. You didn’t want me, didn’t want a soulmate, until after you were Tal Vashoth. So how can I trust that? How can I believe that it’s real and you’re not just… just using me and the _possibility_ to replace what you lost?”

“It isn’t like that--!” the Bull denies frantically, eye wide with shock.

“But how can I be sure?” Lavellan counters. He shakes his head. “And not just you-- what about me? Now that I know-- how can I ignore it? Letting myself hope-- letting myself believe that it’s true and that I could have-- and then losing it-- it would _destroy_ me, Bull.”

The wall keeps cracking, despite his best efforts. The Bull forces himself to take a step back, lower the hand that he had reached out entreatingly without even realizing it.

He has always sworn to himself that he would give Lavellan what he needs. That’s how it works--if it’s a friend, someone you care about, you give them what they need. No matter how much it hurts.

“I’m sorry, kadan,” he says one last time. He keeps his voice low and quiet, banishes the begging, desperate tones.

Lavellan shakes his head. “Don’t call me that. Please, I know what it means.” He puts his hand on the door and pushes it open, but pauses a moment before entering the keep. “I’m sorry too, Bull,” he says quietly, then slips around the door and is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...it's gonna get better. Promise.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can we talk?” he asks quietly.
> 
> “Lead the way,” the Bull answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *stumbles in, completely disheveled*  
> *visibly does not know what day it is*  
> *throws this chapter at the screen*  
> *stumbles out*

The Inquisition marches on. Lavellan is occupied with Cullen, tracking down the Red Templar commander Samson. Cassandra is now his go-to warrior to take into the field with him, but the Bull has plenty to do on his own, with his Chargers, helping out with the training where he can.

He gets drunk with Varric and Dorian, puts Cremisius through his paces, teaches Sera dirty words in Qunlat, runs errands for Madame De Fer, wastes a decent amount of money trying (and failing) to set Cole up with Candy for a night.

“I’ve been helping him sleep,” the spirit boy says one day out of the blue. “Herbs that make the tent smell like the aravel did, a lullaby the clan mothers use to sing the children to sleep. I thought it might help you to know.”

The Bull takes a long drink from his mug and doesn’t look over at him. Cole has gotten a lot better at not appearing on his blind side. Bull appreciates the effort. “Thanks, Cole,” he finally mutters. “It does help. Kind of.”

“I can’t do the things you used to. I don’t think I’m big enough.”

Another  _ long _ drink. He’s going to need a refill. “Yeeaaaaah, that’s… probably for the best.”

“The Iron Bull? May I ask you something?”

The Bull is pretty sure he knows what he’s going to ask, and he rubs tiredly at his eye. “You’re probably better off asking Varric, Cole,” he says, then heaves himself up to go get his refill. By the time he makes it back to his seat, Cole has wandered off, and Stitches and Dalish have moved in, wanting him to settle a bet.

He finds the letters on his desk the next morning, takes one look and starts cursing viciously under his breath as he gathers them up.

The pages are crumpled, discarded and rejected drafts, and stained as if they’d shared the bin with the remains of a meal. The Bull recognizes the greeting-- To Keeper Deshanna Istimaethoriel of Clan Lavellan, and the rest of the letter in the Inquisitor’s careful but unsteady scrawl, and far longer than his usual brief missives.

He shouldn’t. For all Lavellan’s casual disregard for personal privacy, these are thoughts the Bull has not been invited to know. Given that they have been thrown away and not sent, probably no one has been invited to know them. It would be wrong to read them, a betrayal.

As a Ben Hassrath of the Qunari, as Hissrad, he wouldn’t have hesitated. What did it matter? Any information was useful and therefore valuable, and he could easily make it so that the Inquisitor never even knew. Why would he even suspect? So no harm done.

In the end he feeds the pages to the fire (like Lavellan should have done, damn it, boss, has Red taught you nothing?) and watches the delicate paper curl and turn black.

“But you didn’t even read them,” Cole complains plaintively.

The Bull closes his eye and takes a deep breath. “You shouldn’t have done that, Cole,” he growls, and the pale boy shrinks back behind the droopy brim of his hat.

“I didn’t steal them,” he whispers. “He threw them away.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s wrong.”

“But words are so hard for him, and there’s no way for him to show you, and you need to know.”

The Bull sighs. Wonders why he doesn’t kick the kid out on his ass for this shit. “Know what?”

A long silence. When the Bull glances over, Cole is staring at him, his colorless eyes wide and unfocused. The hair on the back of his neck stands up and goose-pimples rise up and down his arms

“Cole--” he rumbles warningly, shifting to put a sturdy piece of furniture between them. Fuck-- how did he get to be so stupid? Alone in a room with a fucking demon-- what was he thinking?

“ _ Keeper, do you remember when my mark first appeared _ ?” Cole whispers, his voice distant and dreamy, his words not his own. The Bull glances at the remains of the letters, little more than ash by now, and curses again. “ _ It was the color of steel that’s been heated up in a forge, all bright and hot and glowing, and the other children made fun because it wasn’t a proper name, and I asked you how I would ever know my soulmate if I didn’t know their name, and you said I would just know. _ ”

A soft stutter, a hiccup of breath. One draft of the letter broken off and rejected, a new one begun. “ _ Do you remember how you worried, Keeper, when my soulmark appeared? You’d never seen a Qun mark before and you didn’t know what it would mean for me, but I told you not to worry, because I could feel my soulmate through the bond and I knew that he was strong and good and he would protect me, but then-- _ ”

Another stutter. A new draft. “ _ Keeper, I’ve met a man. He makes me feel like when I would sleep on the road in the aravel as a child, safe and familiar and moving toward something new and exciting all at once. He reminds me of leaping from the cliffs by Wycome, the thrill of falling, embracing the danger while knowing the Amaranthine will catch me. And he reminds me of the fire at camp-- he makes me feel safe, Keeper, I have not felt safe since I left you at Ostwick to come south. Keeper, I think I could love him, but I am afraid-- _ ”

Another stutter. Cole takes a deep breath and then releases it in a long sigh. “Keeper. Miss you. Wish I could come home,” he finishes. “That’s the one he sent.”

The Bull has closed his eye.  _ Kadan _ , he thinks.  _ Kadan. Kadan. Kadan. _ “Cole,” he says quietly. “Don’t do that again.”

He doesn’t hear Cole leave. He stares at the fire for a long time.

 

He doesn’t mean for Lavellan to come across him and Cassandra and the Feelings Stick, but, well, with everything that’s been going on…. He needs it. If anyone asks he’ll say he’s still unsettled from their little unplanned trip to the Fade--and it’s not a lie, even, that nightmare demon was… big.

Cassandra doesn’t  _ get _ it. She has her faith; when she’s feeling unsettled she prays. Hours on one’s knees on a hard stone Chantry floor is its own kind of punishment, of course, and then there’s the hours he’s seen her spend attacking a defenseless training dummy, but she isn’t the type to put her full strength into attacking a friend, even one who has asked her to.

It’s foolish, or maybe the Bull just knows better than she does how quickly the guy you got drinks with the night before can turn into a frothing, deadly enemy. Maybe he envies her that blindspot, a little, so instead of sneering at her he just goads her into hitting him harder.

Maybe a little too well. When he’s done blinking the stars out of his vision, she’s passing the stick to Lavellan with a roll of her eyes.

It seems ridiculous that Lavellan will be able to hit him any harder, and he seems to think so too, given the dubious way he’s eyeing the Bull and the stick in his hands. For one thing-- he’s roughly half the Bull’s size and shorter than Cassandra, slender and lean-- a mage, no warrior, his strength lying in other areas than his arm. And for another, he is, if anything, softer on his friends than Cassandra.

“You don’t have to, boss,” the Bull offers-- but then Lavellan shifts his grip on the stick, and the Bull remembers how he swings that staff of his if, in the thick of battle, he’s forced to fight melee, how he’s put more than a few dents in Red Templar armor.

And maybe he’s eager for the chance to hit the Bull a few times. That works too.

“What is this exactly?” he asks, as carefully considering and casually curious as he always is.

“Qunari training exercise,” the Bull explains. “To conquer fear.”

Fade green eyes dart up and fix on his face. The Bull meets his gaze steadily. He looks a bit better than the last time they talked, like maybe he’s had more than three hours of sleep in the past three days and at least one decent meal. And the Bull knows-- seen them up in the Keep and chatting with Cole-- that he’s at least had a chance to talk to Varric himself, so maybe he’s been able to start getting past what happened to Hawke and doesn’t hate himself so much.

“What do I do?” Lavellan asks. 

“Just hit me with the stick, boss. It’s not complicated.” That surprises a little smile out of him, a minute twitch of the lips that makes a tentative hope uncurl slightly in the Bull’s chest.

“Fair enough,” he allows, then spins and slams the rod into the Bull’s chest, using the torque of his body to add power to make up for his own lack of physical strength.

The Bull takes the blow, lets it knock the breath out of his lungs, then chases it with a pound of his own fist. “That’s it,” he encourages. “Come on!”

It lacks the raw power that had been behind Cassandra’s blows, but Lavellan knows  _ how _ to hit, and he doesn’t pull punches like the Bull thought he might. It’s better, coming from him, anyway. The  _ hitting _ isn’t the point of the exercise.

The dynamic  _ should _ be reversed from what they were like in the bedroom, Lavellan laying out the blows and the Bull taking it for him instead of the other way around, but… it’s not, strangely. Maybe because Lavellan is doing it for the Bull, because he asked. He keeps his eyes on the Bull’s, waiting for his little nod before letting swing with everything he has.

It’s good. It’s different than how it was back home, taking blows from his trainers so they would know he wouldn’t flinch in battle. But it’s good. It works. It’s  _ easy _ to find the mindset he needs for the boss. He needs the Bull to be strong, and the Bull knows--he  _ knows _ \--that he won’t let him down.

Lavellan pants slightly with the exertion and a light flush rises on his cheeks. He looks good. A few weeks ago, before Adamant, before the Fade, before everything was laid unbearably bare between them, the Bull would have leaned close, enjoyed the smell of his sweat before taking him off to a secluded corner somewhere--there are plenty in Skyhold and they’ve mapped them all out . Now he forces himself to let the impulse go.

“Thanks, boss,” the Bull says with a satisfied sigh when they’re done. He rolls his shoulders, lets the weight of his head and his horns stretch out the cords of his neck until he’s feeling loose, the last of the tension beat away like Bull is a piece of clay that needs to be kneaded and worked on before it’s malleable enough to shape and mold. “I needed that.”

“You like it rough,” Lavellan teases. He’s gotten the feel for the stick-- just a stout branch the Bull pulled from one of the labor crews-- and twirls it a few times, like some of the flashier moves he pulls with his staff.

“Only from you, boss,” the Bull answers automatically, the flirting coming natural as breathing, and unable to keep the fond affection he feels from coloring his voice..

A split second later Lavellan seems to realize what they both just said and drops the stick with a clatter. The Bull winces and looks away.

For a moment, neither of them can find anything to say. But then Lavellan sighs and draws the Bull’s eye back to him. He’s blushing a little, embarrassed, and holding himself carefully, his arms tight against his chest, the fingers of one hand tapping against his bottom lip. But as the Bull watches he seems to gather himself up, spine straightening, chin lifting. Fade green eyes meet the Bull’s gaze with determination, though he wets his lips nervously before he speaks.

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly.

“Lead the way,” the Bull answers.

They head up to a corner of the battlements, a little landing around the corner from the tower, out of the way enough to be fairly private while still staying neutral. The Bull leans against the ledge-- he’s used to this, knows how to minimize his own size to keep the person he’s talking to from feeling overpowered in any way. He won’t loom, won’t crowd, won’t push. Lavellan watches him, a slight crease between his brows and an unreadable expression on his face.

“What’s on your mind?” the Bull prompts.

Lavellan sighs. “I feel like I should apologize for the last time we talked,” he says quietly.

The Bull shakes his head. “You don’t have to be sorry for how you feel.”

“I don’t  _ know _ how I feel, that’s the problem.”

“I should have told you about it sooner,” the Bull says.

“That might have prevented some of this confusion, yes,” Lavellan allows, nodding thoughtfully. “But… we also might not have ever been together at all if I knew, and I… I don’t think that’s better.”

“...Yeah?”

Lavellan’s mouth twitches again, that uncertain little smile, and a soft breeze blows a lock of his hair across his cheek. The Bull has the urge to reach out, bridge the distance between them, and tuck the errant curl behind a delicate ear, an unimaginable intimacy after everything, and he holds his breath to keep it in.

A second later Lavellan looks away and brushes his hair back himself. The Bull swallows the urge to sigh in disappointment. “Anyway,” he says. “I should have handled it better. So I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, boss.”

“I met Bianca,” Lavellan says suddenly, and it seems like such a subject change that it takes a moment for the Bull to catch up.

“...Varric’s Bianca? The  _ person _ ?”

“Not the crossbow.”

“Holy shit.”

“Mm.”

“How did  _ that  _ go?”

“It was… weird.” Lavellan huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Seeing them together is weird. She’s married, I think--it’s some caste thing, I guess. They were going to run away together, once, but… it didn’t work out. Something about a clan war--I don’t really understand dwarven politics.”

“No one does, not even the dwarves.” That earns him another little chuckle and a sideways glance that still lights a warm fire of desire in the Bull’s chest, no matter what he does.

“She’s an inventor,” Lavellan says slowly. “She’s being considered for Paragon status. If… if she’d gone with Varric, her work would probably have never been recognized by the Merchant’s Guild.”

“And she and Varric might both be dead, and you’d be down one Artificer for the Inquisition,” the Bull points out. The star crossed lover thing rarely ended well for anyone.

“But Varric still loves her,” Lavellan says, shaking his head. “There’s never been anyone else for him, even after all this time.”

“I doubt there’s anything either of them can do about that.” The Bull remembers standing on a different balcony, the Orlesian court glittering around them while they discussed another pair of ill-fated soulmates.

“Did you know that, among my people, when someone loses their soulmate it’s fairly common for them to follow them beyond the Veil?”

“Suicide?” It’s another jump, and the Bull does his best to keep up. The boss doesn’t think in straight lines, always, it’s part of what makes him so fascinating to the Bull. All these things are connected, to him, and the Bull enjoys the art of puzzling through his thought process.

“There’s even a word for it. Vhenan’shiral. Journey of the Heart. It is believed that in death, the two souls are reunited and become one.”

The Bull frowns a little, but makes a noncommittal noise and tries to refrain from judging Lavellan’s culture too harshly. Certain things are starting to become clear. Soulmates. Obviously. Everything comes back to soulmates. Varric and his Bianca, like Celene and Briala, are another pair who have made choices that, because of how he was raised, seem utterly incomprehensible to Lavellan. It would be culturally unacceptable to the Dalish for a soulmate pair to separate, marry other people and live apart, if they were expected to remain united even into death.

Lavellan sighs deeply and shakes his head. “My point is… I’ve been taught all my life to believe a lot of bullshit about soulmarks. I asked Solas--I figured at least some of it had to be the People misinterpreting and misremembering our history, his favorite Dalish sin.” He rolls his eyes expansively and the Bull indulges a moment to be slightly amused by the boss’s complex relationship with the other resident elven apostate.

“What did he say?”

“It took roughly an hour, but I was eventually able to get him to admit that he didn’t know. Apparently the ancients didn’t have soulmarks--did you know that?”

The Bull didn’t, and even now, months without contact from home, his first instinct is to dash off a note to Tallis so they can pass it along to the Tamassrans.

“Solas’s theory is that they have something to do with the Veil and the Fade. Of course, the Chantry credits Andraste. So who knows.” He shakes his head again as if to clear it and get himself back on subject. “I’d thought that I’d left a lot of it behind me,” he says slowly, ordering his thoughts, “that I wasn’t letting it define me anymore. But it turns out, it’s a lot harder to unlearn a lifetime of doctrine than I’d thought.”

“Hey,” the Bull soothes, “you don’t have to tell me, boss. Believe me, I know what that’s like.”

Lavellan’s mouth twitches into another smile as he acknowledges the truth of that. “So… where does that leave us, Bull?”

The Bull steps closer, finally giving in to the urge to touch the flyway curl that escapes on the wind to trail over Lavellan’s forehead. Lavellan allows the contact without flinching, simply tilting his head back to continue meeting the Bull’s gaze. He’s never once been intimidated by the Bull’s size, not the first time on the Storm Coast, not in the thick of battle, not in bed, no matter how people joke. He just lifts his chin and looks Bull in the eye, unflinching.

“What do you want, boss?” the Bull asks, keeping his voice low and soothing.

“Thought you were all about what I  _ need _ ,” Lavellan answers, steady as a rock to anyone else, anyone besides the Bull, who can hear the underlying currents, as swift and hidden as an underground river.

“Sometimes it’s both. What do you  _ need _ ?”

Something is crumbling in him, the swift moving waters wearing away the stone. “I want… you,” he confesses, quietly, carefully, pink tongue darting out to wet his full lips. “But… I don’t want to get hurt, Bull. I need… I need to know.”

The Bull smiles a little and steps closer still, until only the barest of spaces separates them and he has to slouch down and Lavellan has to crane his neck back for them to keep looking at each other. “I know what you need,” the Bull assures him, and a tremor of palpable relief shivers through Lavellan, that he is understood without the agony of struggling to find words.

“What about you?” he insists. “What do you need, Bull?”

“I want you to be happy,” the Bull says, shrugging as if it were all very simple. “I want you to be safe. I  _ need _ … to know that  _ I _ can do those things for you.” That his Tama wasn’t wrong, that he is capable of protecting and sheltering, not just killing and destroying, that he isn’t a savage, selfish, unthinking Tal-Vashoth.

“Bull….” Lavellan says, swaying forward into him helplessly, but the Bull catches him, and as much as he treasures having him in his hands again, his slim waist feeling so perfect in his broad palms, he gently, gently, eases him back.

“You don’t need to rush,” the Bull says, smiling so he won’t feel rebuked. “I’m not going anywhere; You just take your time. And when you’re ready to make the leap? I’ll be right there to catch you.”

That makes Lavellan smile, a tiny ghost of a laugh huffing past his lips. “Have you ever been to the coast by Wycome? My clan travels near there in the summer months-- there’s a cove where the water is so deep and so clear you can see straight to the bottom; we used to dare each other to jump from the cliffs into the sea.”

The Bull brings one hand up to cup his cheek, thumb stroking soft as a whisper over the familiar lines of his vallaslin. “I bet you always jumped,” he says fondly.

“ _ Always _ ,” Lavellan confirms boldly, and presses forward again.

The Bull holds him back still. “You need to be sure-- I  _ want _ you to be sure.”

“I’m sure that if you don’t kiss me right this instant I’ll hit you with such a lightning bolt that your horns will curl,” Lavellan challenges, and the Bull chuckles. Bratty little kadan.

It’s simple enough to  indulge him, however, and far beyond the Bull to resist the temptation. Bringing his other hand up, he frames Lavellan’s face and tilts his head back to press a deep, conquering kiss to his lips. Lavellan makes a soft noise and yields so sweetly, his slender fingers curling around the Bull’s wrists in a surprisingly firm, grounding grip as he meets the kiss, bows before the Bull’s domination, and presses himself closer still.

By the time they separate, the Bull finds that one hand has migrated to Lavellan’s hair to tangle in his golden curls and the other to his trim, narrow little waist to haul him flush against the Bull’s body, while both of Lavellan’s hands cling to the straps of the Bull’s harness.

The Bull chuckles a little, presses another, gentler, sweeter kiss to Lavellan’s lips, and eases back. “When you’re sure, one way or another, come to me then,” he says.

“Bull,” Lavellan whines, but the Bull just grins.

“When you’re sure, kadan,” he says, then steps away and takes the stairs down to the garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love angst, but I can never draw it out for very long. I always end up having the characters talk to each other like halfway reasonable people.
> 
> have I mentioned that I'm doing NaNo this month? That (and a plethora of other, more boring reasons) is why this chapter is so late. Sorry.
> 
> but it's the penultimate one! I'll post the last one in a few days (unless turkey-coma makes me forget) and I won't even make you wait for the epilogue, how's that sound....


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waiting is an agony. He knows that Lavellan needs the time and the space to figure out his thoughts, and Lavellan must agree because he stays away, but the Bull feels like he’s going out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot! Posting this on the fly! Will return to edit later!!

Waiting is an agony. He knows that Lavellan needs the time and the space to figure out his thoughts, and Lavellan must agree because he stays away, but the Bull feels like he’s going out of his head.

As confident as he feels in the boss’s decision, Lavellan has surprised him so often in the past that he knows he can’t take anything for granted. He does his best to keep himself distracted, putting his Chargers through their paces, heckling Dorian and Cullen when they meet to play chess, teasing Cremisius for falling out of his chair while craning around to watch that minstrel girl play.

Lavellan is also busy. There’s some old Elvhen temple that Corypheus has apparently set his sights on, and the Inquisitor and his advisors are in the War Room day and night planning their assault, or working with Dagna on their last, best weapon, something that will counter Samson’s armor.

They see each other mostly in passing, but they’ve turned a corner, at the very least. Lavellan no longer goes out of his way to avoid the Bull, and the Bull doesn’t feel guiltily obligated to skulk around and avoid the main keep to make that easier on him. The Bull catches him looking at him sometimes, tapping his fingertips over his bottom lip with a thoughtful expression on his face.

When the Bull catches his eye he lifts his drink in acknowledgement and encouragement, but doesn’t try to approach him. He told Lavellan to come to him when he was sure, so all he can do is wait.

In the meantime, there are Venatori in the Hissing Wastes, and while they are waiting for Dagna to come through there is no reason why the Inquisitor can’t take a small team to find out why.

“Why  _ anyone _ would waste their time with a  _ literal _ wasteland is beyond me,” Dorian complains. “Honestly, Inquisitor, can’t you take Solas?  _ There’s  _ a man whose disposition might actually be  _ improved _ by generous application of sand.”

Lavellan doesn’t even look away from getting the bridle on the pale stag he prefers as a mount. “Sorry, Dorian,” he says, not sounding even slightly sorry. “Solas is researching that temple for me.  _ You _ are my resident Venatori expert.”

“Well, why do  _ I _ have to go?” Varric grumbles as he hefts his pack over to the others.

“Morale,” Lavellan answers cheerfully.

“And I’m here to hit stuff,” the Bull puts in, swinging his axe up onto his shoulder. “Looking forward to it.”

Lavellan glances at him, smiling a little, then away, carefully schooling his expression back to neutral. “Exactly. Now, get a move on, all of you, I want to make good time to the Wastes.”

Varric looks back and forth between the Inquisitor and the Bull, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Then he sighs expressively and shakes his head. “Great,” he mutters.

“You two seem to have made up,” Dorian observes archly. “I’m glad.”

The Bull shrugs and lifts Dorian’s pack for him. “Ball is in his court, now.”

“Oh, Bull, no one other than me understands your racquetball references.”

“That’s why you’re so special to me, big guy.”

 

They honestly weren’t expecting the dragon. The Inquisitor is going to have to empty his wine cellar to make this up to Dorian and Varric, the Bull thinks-- if Dorian and Varric survive, and then thought is subsumed by battle, his blood pumping through his veins, the sweat running into his eye.

“It’s going to come around again-- Varric, get it’s eyes!” Lavellan shouts.

“Have I mentioned that I hate dragons?” Varric yells back, but he slams another bolt into Bianca’s firing mechanism and braces his stout little legs.

“Bull-- with me!” the Inquisitor calls. “Dorian, cover us!”

“Fasta vass!”

The Howler wheels overhead and they all brace themselves as she buffets them with gusts from her wings, seeking cover behind rocks and closing their eyes against the spray of sand kicked up by the wind. The ground shakes when she finally lands, and their ears split on her screaming roar.

The Bull roars back, already charging, the Inquisitor a blur of Fade-assisted speed at his side, green glowing spirit sword at the ready, while Varric’s bolts and Dorian’s blasts of ice slam into the dragon over their heads.

The dragon is glorious as dragons always are, but it’s difficult to take as much joy in this one as he had previously. They’d stumbled into this nest off of a particularly challenging rift out on the dunes, and they’re all fairly exhausted and sand-crusted from a night tracking down venatori and exploring dwarven ruins. The mages are close to spent, Varric keeps cursing under his breath about sand getting in Bianca’s gears, and the Bull is the sole warrior in their little group, making him responsible for the safety of the others, but the sand is treacherous and hard on his bad knee.

He’s never been great defensive fighter-- it’s not his style, really. Cassandra and Blackwall can throw up a shield wall that, between the two of them, is nearly impenetrable, but the Bull’s defence is usually to hit hard and hit first, while presenting a bigger target for the enemy to focus on so that his smaller friends can get out of the way.

That’s pretty much his main strategy now. Lavellan has to move back after a while to replenish his mana, and the Bull roars again, tearing into the dragon’s slightly more vulnerable underbelly to give him time to slam back a potion. He lets the empty vial fall and goes right back to it, firing spells from his staff rather than waste time running back close.

“I’m out of lyrium!” he shouts to Dorian, who curses back and replenishes their barriers with a sound like a cannon.

“We should fall back!” Dorian calls.

“No!” Lavellan answers. “It’s nearly dead-- we almost have it! Don’t let her take off again!”

The Bull dodges around the beast’s feet, getting in blows wherever he can make it most count and dodging its claws and lashing tail. But then Lavellan hits it with an ice blast straight to the head and it roars in pain and outrage, the Bull is all but forgotten as she turns her attention on the boss. Lavellan barely tumbles out of the way in time as she scorches the earth where he’d been standing with her firebreath, but his barrier is beginning to falter.

“Oh, no you don’t,” the Bull snarls, putting his head down and and charging to the front of the beast. “Over here!” he goads. “That’s right!  _ I’m _ the son of a bitch-- come get me!” His axe bites deep into the dragon’s neck-- he  _ feels  _ it, the killing blow, the dragon’s life now pouring out of the wound.

She  _ screams _ and they all stagger with it. The Bull loses his grip on his weapon as the dying beast writhes and turns-- too close, he’s too close, and he can’t get his feet under him to get away, his weaker knee gone stiff and uncooperative.

“ _ Shit _ ,” the Bull mutters as, in a final act of hatred and rage, the dragon closes her jaws around him.

 

He comes to, briefly, with the stars wheeling blurrily above him and the harsh, bitter taste of elfroot in his throat. He groans and tries to sit up, and Lavellan easily pushes him back down again. Lavellan. Lavellan is here, his hands warm and gentle against the Bull’s chest and a faint green glow all around him.

It used to freak the Bull out, that glow, meant magic was happening, and far too close for his comfort, but now it simply meant that the boss was nearby, as familiar as the smell of elfroot and earth that followed him around.

“You can’t keep this up.” That’s Dorian’s voice-- another thing that, a year ago the Bull would have never guessed would have become a comfort.

“He’s stabilizing,” Lavellan answers.

“How the hell are we going to get him back to camp?” And that’s Varric. What’s Varric doing here?

“Bull? Can you hear me?”

_ Kadan _ , the Bull starts to say, but then he remembers, faintly, that Lavellan told him not to call him that, and he frowns a bit in confusion.

“I need you to drink this, vhenan.”

Hmm, he knows that word-- something the boss told him once; it’s Elvhen, what does it mean?

“Bull? Bull, can you hear me?”

_ I can hear you, kadan _ , he thinks. And then he drifts off again.

 

He dreams of sunbeams shining through a green forest canopy, a little clearing rich with plant life and hazy with humid warmth and droning insects. A river rushes through, the waters sparkling clear, reflecting the sunlight back like handfuls of diamonds. Someone has made a little camp on the bank, a cheerful little fire with a little pot warming over it, the contents just beginning to bubble and releasing a mouthwatering aroma into the air.

Whoever built the fire and set up the little tent nearby must have only just stepped away, and the fire and the pot and all are so inviting-- it’s easy to settle himself down beside it to wait for them to come back.

 

When he wakes up properly he has somehow been brought back to the Inquisition campsite, the scouts bustling about and the requisitions officer shouting something from her station.

“Ah. You’re awake.” Dorian snaps his book shut and looks him over critically. “I was given extremely strict instructions to have you drink this the moment you regained consciousness. Since agreement to this term was quite literally the only way to convince our fearless leader to go rest, your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”

Dorian’s only this chatty, rambling out the big words and the fancy vocabulary, when he’s upset. He must have been quite worried, so the Bull knocks back the potion he gives him without question or protest.

It tastes terrible, bitter and medicinal, but it starts working right away and the Bull is able to sit up with only a faint groan of protest. He recognizes Lavellan’s personal blend of herbs, but a quick glance around shows the man himself nowhere to be found.

“Where is the Inquisitor?” he asks dumbly. “Not that I don’t like ya, big guy,” he hastens to add, and Dorian rolls his eyes.

“Just not the mage you were hoping to find leaning over your sickbed?” he guesses.

“Does the commander know you’re making time in tents with naked men?” the Bull counters with a friendly leer.

Dorian rolls his eyes again. “To answer your question,” he says primly. “Lavellan is resting, finally. He damn near killed himself getting you stabilized after the dragon decided to take a bite out of you. Neither of us being healers, you’re damned lucky he’s such an herbalist. Between the potions and what I can only  _ assume _ was Dalish magic, he probably saved your life.”

Curious, the Bull prods his new scar. It’s still pink and fresh and tingling slightly with whatever Lavellan did to stop the bleeding, and it’s going to be pretty spectacular once it ages up. And hey, there’s a story for the barmaids--  _ Got this one fighting a dragon _ , he’ll say, and watch ‘em all swoon. “Nice,” the Bull rumbles appreciatively. “How’d I get back here?”

“Ancient Dalish Wisdom,” Dorian answers. “Only this time it’s the truth, or near enough. He made a sled, whistled up that stag of his, and we all dragged you home like a side of beef.”

Well. He’ll be leaving that part out when he tells the barmaids, obviously. “Thanks, big guy. You and Varric ok?”

“We’ve been discussing our terms for the next time the Inquisitor wants to drag us out into the wilderness to fight dragons, and they are quite steep. Varric is an inspired negotiator. But  _ I’m _ not the one who made himself spectacularly ill from mana depletion.”

That makes the Bull frown and start trying to get up again. “Is he alright? Where is he?”

It is embarrassingly easy for Dorian to push him back down onto the bedroll. “He is  _ resting _ and so should you be,” he says. “He just needs sleep, Bull, honestly. Mana depletion is awful-- nausea, vertigo, the  _ worst _ headache you can imagine, but nothing lethal. Rest is the only real remedy-- unless you want to make yourself sick with lyrium instead, anyway.”

Reluctantly, the Bull allows himself to be bullied back into lying down but he isn’t happy about it. “Did we kill the dragon, at least?” he asks, just to be sure.

“ _ You _ killed the dragon, you big lummox. Here. We pulled this out of your back. I’m sure there’s something disgustingly barbaric for you to do with it.” Leaning forward, Dorian hands him something hard and sharp and heavier than it should be for its size, slightly smaller than the Bull’s thumb.

“A tooth?” he says, wonderingly.

“The Iron Bull,” Dorian crows, “tougher than a dragon’s tooth!” Patting the Bull’s shoulder, he gathers his book and slips out of the tent with a promise to bring him some food.

The Bull stares at the tooth in his hand. If he were the type of person to believe in signs, this would be a pretty impressive one.

But he isn’t.

Still. He puts the tooth in his pack anyway.

 

Lavellan finally comes to him back at Skyhold, in the usual tucked away corner of the Herald’s Rest.

Well. He’d come the morning after the dragon as well, stumbling into the Bull’s tent looking pale and disoriented and mumbling in Elvhen as he poked with great determination (and very little coordination) at the Bull’s healed over wounds.

Dorian and Varric had eventually come to herd him back to his own bedroll. The Bull would have been more than happy to let him stay, of course, but there were conversations they needed to have first, conversations Lavellan needed to be in full control of his faculties for.

When they left the Hissing Wastes, later that same morning, Lavellan was in the back of a wagon.

The Chargers had met them at the gate back at Skyhold. According to Krem the rumor had gone around that the Iron Bull had either been cut in half by the dragon or defeated it single-handed with one arm behind his back, and they’d given a hearty cheer to see him in one piece.

Between the Bull catching up with his Chargers and Lavellan getting updates from his advisors, it’s a few days before the Inquisitor steps into the tavern, but then suddenly he’s there, standing before the Bull with his back straight and his green eyes burning.

“I need to talk to you,” Lavellan says without preamble. The Bull swallows his nerves and sets his tankard down before levering himself to his feet. He towers over the boss, but they’re both more than used to that and Lavellan just lifts his chin. His face is nearly unreadable, for once, even to the Bull. Well. He’ll know one way or the other after this.

“My room,” he suggests quietly, and Lavellan nods.

As they go upstairs, Sera leans out of her little room and shouts, “Don’t fuck it up this time!” but it’s easy enough for them both to ignore her. Cole is nowhere to be seen, thank fuck.

Once inside, the Bull settles onto the bed, hands braced on his spread thighs, and waits.

Lavellan lingers uncertainly by the door, chewing on his lower lip.

“...It’s alright, boss,” the Bull says after a moment. If he’s worried about letting the Bull down gently he doesn’t need to. The Bull is a tough guy, he’ll survive. In spite of the temptation to go feed himself to another dragon, even.

“Same rules as always?” Lavellan answers just as quietly. “ _ Katoh _ to stop?”

The Bull closes his eye. It hurts, worse than the dragon crushing him in her jaws, even worse than he was expecting, but it’s no  _ less _ than he was expecting. But it’s good. That’s what the watchword is for, to keep boundaries clear while emotions are high and everything else is muddled. “Katoh to stop,” he confirms. “That’s good, boss, that’s-- that’s fine.”

There’s a gentle clinking sound, like a chain.

“Bull,” Lavellan says. He sounds alarmed, and the Bull quickly opens his eye to reassure him.

He’s holding….

“I’m not saying that I  _ want _ \-- you  _ always _ make me say the watchword before we start.”

“Is that--?” the Bull says faintly.

Lavellan lets the large pendant drop and swing from its chain, still wrapped around his fingers. It’s a dragon’s tooth, a little bigger than the one Dorian pulled out of the Bull’s back, split in half to make a pair of necklaces, set in gold and hanging from a rope chain.

Lavellan finally comes closer and settles next to the Bull on the bed, the two pendants cradled in his hands. The Bull doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare speak.

“It’s a choice,” Lavellan says slowly, and there’s no possible way for him to know how he echoes the Tamassran from so long ago. “I can’t… change what has already happened. I can’t get back what has been lost. But I can still make a choice. I would… I would choose you, Bull, if you would have me.”

_ Kadan _ , the Bull thinks.  _ Kadan, Kadan. _

Lavellan sighs, his chin dipping to his chest. “ _ Creators _ , Bull, I’ve been such a fool. Do you think you could forgive me?”

_ Kadan _ , the Bull thinks, then reaches over to cup Lavellan’s cheek, drawing him close as he finally collects himself enough to say outloud, “Kadan.”

Lavellan’s green eyes look wet, but he smiles, waveringly, and leans in. “Your heart?” he asks.

“Kadan,” the Bull confirms.

“Ma vhenan,” Lavellan answers, then wraps his arms around the Bull’s neck and kisses him, deep and sweet, while the Bull puts his hands around his slender waist and hauls him into his lap.

They pull apart, briefly, for Lavellan to shyly clasp one of the necklaces around the Bull’s neck. The Bull, with his bigger fingers, doesn’t bother with the fiddly little clasp; the chain is long enough for him to loop it over Lavellan’s head, tenderly easing it past his ears and then tugging his blond curls free.

When Cullen comes boldly through the door a few hours later, the necklaces are all they are wearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading to the end! The support for this story has been overwhelming, including one or two readers who confessed to not being fans of the trope! Thank you all for taking a chance on it!
> 
> One of you theorized that Bull would be getting his mark back. I thought long and hard about it and I hope that this ending isn't too disappointing. The point was that they don't know for SURE, but they know in their hearts or whatever. Love is about choice. Sometimes you make wrong ones, and sometimes you get another chance to make a different one, and sometimes you get to move on and make new ones.
> 
> The last chapter, which I will post in a moment, if a COMPLETELY OPTIONAL epilogue that is BASICALLY just a corseting scene. I think it brings some closure to the characters, but if that's not your bag, I want to emphasize that it is NOT REQUIRED READING IN ANY WAY. I would also like to warn all of you who DO choose to read on: your author is a fucking TEASE (and I'm not sorry about it)
> 
> Thank you again, and I hope the ending was satisfying! I would love for you to share your thoughts with me in a comment, and you can find me on tumblr as ibibibi


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EPILOGUE SPECIFIC TAGS AND NOTES:
> 
> This is basically just a corseting scene, and not required reading in the least (though fun and an interesting challenge for me to write)
> 
> Light spanking, light kink, everything consensual and about the same level of pre-discussion you get in Bull's romance in game. Discussion of restraints but no actual use.
> 
> Your author is an UNAPOLOGETIC TEASE, just keep this in mind.
> 
> This is WAY outside of my wheelhouse, so.... I'm actually pretty nervous about it. Please let me know if you feel I should adjust the fic rating or tags.
> 
> Ok, here we go....

Lavellan picked it out, from some little shop in Val Royeaux that Sera apparently knew about (the Bull  _ doesn’t _ want details) with a shopkeeper who can be trusted to be… discreet about the Inquisitor’s tastes. It’s not green silk or gold brocade, but the Bull isn’t terribly disappointed, not with the smooth, shiny pink satin, just the right shade to complement Lavellan’s dusky little nipples as they peek out over the top. There’s even a slight frill of lace on the edging, just enough to make a tantalizing tease.

“I feel a little ridiculous,” Lavellan says dubiously, smoothing his hands down his sides, where the boning of the corset cling to his figure but haven’t yet squeezed and pressed him into a full hourglass shape. No, that’ll only happen when the Bull takes the ribbon laces in the back and gives them a nice, strong  _ pull _ ….

Lavellan isn’t fully convinced yet, the smile on his face more indulgent than eager. That’s ok. The Bull is eager enough for both of them, and he’s confident the boss will get the idea very soon.

“You look fantastic,” the Bull says, and Lavellan preens.

“I thought you might like this better than green after all.”

“It’s perfect. I wanna rip it off you.” The Bull steps forward, and, laughing, Lavellan dances back, hands covering the clasps protectively.

“Don’t you dare! Did you know how  _ expensive _ frilly underthings are, because I didn’t. I had to use my own money-- I couldn’t possibly look Josephine in the eye, trying to justify spending Inquisition funds on this.”

“Tell her it’s for morale,” the Bull suggests, advancing again.

Lavellan ducks away, smirking, and yeah, chase and catch is a favorite of theirs-- frequently it’s the highlight of the evening, charging around the bedroom after him while Lavellan laughs and squeals until they’re both breathless and the Bull’s blood is pumping hot and heavy through his body, finally catching him and tossing him onto the bed, following quickly to pin him down, the slick (carefully and thoroughly applied before beginning the game) providing a warm, smooth glide.

But tonight’s special, different. Lavellan was no inexperienced blushing virgin when he first came to the Bull-- and honestly the Bull likes that, it’s comforting in a way to know that Lavellan is absolutely confident in his desires-- but still, it’s always nice to discover a few firsts that they can share together.

So, instead of pursuing and letting the game play out like usual, the Bull stops by the bed and holds out a hand.

“Come here, kadan,” he says, and there’s a command in his voice, an order, a reminder that outside this room Lavellan is the Inquisitor, but up here, right now, the Bull is in charge.

Lavellan’s still the boss, of course. He can always say no. If he’s in the mood to be punished, the Bull will turn his perfect little ass pink to match the corset, but the Bull is honestly hoping he wants to be sweet tonight. Seeing him in that pretty pink satin, that perfect little frill of lace, it’s put the Bull in the mood to pamper, not punish. Maybe (probably-- certainly) another night they’ll play that way, and the Bull will spank his ass with one hand while pulling the laces tight with the other until Lavellan is breathless and dizzy and begging.

And of course, there’s always, always the chance, the option, of Katoh. It makes the Bull hold his breath, every time, when he holds out his hand and waits to see what Lavellan will choose.

He watches Lavellan weigh his options, still smirking a little, deciding if he wants to play sweetheart or the brat. Most nights “brat” wins, and yeah, the Bull  _ loves _ taking him in hand, as literally as possible, so it’s not like it’ll be a  _ hardship _ if that’s the turn he wants to take.

But Lavellan tilts his head to the side, eyeing the Bull consideringly, then steps forward and put his little hand in the Bull’s, as sweet as can be.

The Bull rewards him by pulling him close and sweeping him into a deep kiss, which he submits beautifully to, eyes dropping closed and lips parting to let the Bull taste him. The Bull’s hands go to his waist, already so trim and narrow, with the whalebone ribs of the corset like a promise to squeeze it in even further, create a delicious curve from waist to hips, just right for the Bull’s hand. He bets with enough time and enough practice, he can get Lavellan’s waist so small he could close his hands around it.

He imagines Lavellan wearing it under his Inquisitor gear, that flashy red coat he favors these days, the leather and metal plating of what passes for battlemage armor, the corset underneath like a secret just for the Bull, and he growls a little at the image, desire hot and consuming in his gut. In the field, no one would notice; he keeps his posture so correct anyway, always the proud and unflappable Inquisitor when eyes are on him. Maybe one of the others in his inner circle would wonder, a little catch of his breath with his lungs just slightly constricted, his movements just a little stiffer than normal, unable to bend and move and fluidly as usual.

But only the Bull would  _ know _ . He could sidle up to him and slip a hand around his waist, to that perfect place that the corset makes for him, feel the captured trembling of his body, know that he’s  _ his _ . And Lavellan would feel it all day, while he’s sitting in judgement on his fancy chair, leaning over the table in the war room, making all the hard, exhausting decisions that are only his to make, he’d feel the corset tight around him, holding him, keeping him contained and together. Keeping him the Bull’s

Something to talk about, perhaps.

But later.

The Bull pulls gently away from the kiss to give Lavellan a good look over. He already gone a little soft and wavering around the edges, a dazed light in his eyes just from the kiss and the corset and the anticipation, but he’ll rally soon enough if the Bull gives him a chance.

Another swift, nipping kiss to his full lips (they’re going to be pink and kiss-bruised by the end of the night, the Bull intends to make sure of it), and then the Bull turns them around and turns Lavellan toward the bed. “Grab the post, boss,” he says, even as he guides his arms up to hold onto the bedpost.

The bed is a sturdy four-poster piece, shipped in from the Free Marches at some ridiculous expense, and it’s already proven itself capable of standing up against a vigorous pounding (so to speak). It can take their combined weight without protest, and even though it is sometimes annoying negotiating his horns past the bed curtains, the Bull  _ does _ like the posts. Likes stretching Lavellan out between them with soft silk ties or using them to keep Lavellan’s thighs spread and his hips immobile, at just the right height at the foot of the bed for all kinds of fun things.

There are ties at each post, ready to go, discreetly hidden among the curtains. Lavellan put them there and waited for the Bull to find them, the minx, and now the Bull pulls a pair of them out and lets them hang. “Need some help holding on?” he asks. Lavellan’s choice, in this. He’ll be yielding everything else to the Bull before the night is through.

Lavellan bites his lip, thinking about it, then shakes his head and wraps his hands around the post, unfettered. “I can do it,” he says.

“Alright, boss,” the Bull agrees easily. “What’s your watchword?”

“Katoh.”

“And if you can’t talk?”

The Bull can’t see it, but he can practically  _ feel _ Lavellan roll his eyes. “Magic. If I need to stop and I can’t talk I use magic. Bull, get  _ on _ with it.”

Chuckling, the Bull gives him a firm swat on the ass for that. “Brat,” he admonishes.

“ _ Please _ ,” Lavellan corrects, simperingly sweet, and the Bull swats him again on principle.

Then he presses his hands to the post while he’s still writhing from the spank and says, “Don’t let go.” One last kiss to the back of his neck, and a squeeze to his wrists against the post, and then the Bull moves his hands down, stroking over the lean muscles of his arms, the bunched cords of his shoulders. The blackened qun mark is starkly visible, glistening with Lavellan’s sweat and almost on display above the lacey ruffle of the corset. The Bull strokes over it with the palm of his hand, then bites at it with his teeth to make Lavellan gasp and jump and shudder, surprisingly sensitive to sensation there.

Then the Bull moves on, sliding his hands around his chest to brush over his nipples where they hide under the little ruffle of lace, then down the irresistibly smooth satin of the corset, tracing the whalebone ribs, squeezing lightly at his waist until finally he reaches the ribbon ties, pulled just tight enough to keep the corset on him but otherwise hanging loose down his back.

The Bull runs the ribbons through his fingers, teasing them both just that little bit more, then wraps them around his fingers a few times until he has a firm, sure grip. “Hold on tight,,” he instructs, nipping ever so lightly at the very tip of Lavellan’s ear to make him gasp. “Now, take a deep breath.”

Lavellan wavers only slightly as he obeys.

The Bull lets him hold it for just a moment, then slowly pulls the laces taut.

Slowly, inescapably, the sides of the corset squeeze in, reshaping and rearranging Lavellan’s body. He gasps from the sensation, his breathing already shallower as his ribs tighten around his lungs, and his arms tremble as he clings to the post, but-- _ good boy _ \--he doesn’t let go, even as his body rocks with the strength of the Bull’s pulls and his necklace dances on its chain, swinging back and forth, the dragon teeth bouncing off of the front of the corset.

Two dragon teeth, or rather, two halves. The Bull had eventually halved the one Lavellan pulled out of his back and shared it with him, wondering if that would meet the Dalish tradition of exchanging tokens. He still isn’t entirely sure if it does or not, but either way Lavellan had lit up, and now they both have two halves of two dragon teeth on a chain. It’s not quite Qunari and not quite Dalish, but it works for them.

The halves don’t quite line up where they hang together on their chain, don’t quite make a whole tooth. Dorian laughed when he saw it, said it suited them.

The Bull rewards him with another little nip to the tip of his sensitive ear, and when he gasps again the Bull pulls the stays tighter still, until the edges of the corset nearly meet along his spine.

Smirking a bit, the Bull wraps more of the ribbon around his fingers, never letting the pressure up for a second. “Take another deep breath, kadan,” he purrs, “and I’ll tie you off.”

It takes three tries for Lavellan to draw a proper breath; he is panting and stuttering, his jaw dropped wide and his eyelashes fluttering. The Bull carefully monitors his pulse, racing just under his jawline, but they’re still in the sweet spot, not yet crossed over to the danger zone.

The Bull ties the laces into a pretty bow right at the curve of Lavellan’s back, then retraces the path his hands took at the beginning, stroking back over the smooth satin and the firm ribs, now taut and straining against Lavellan’s flesh, pausing a moment to marvel at the brand new curve of his waist--and he  _ knew _ his hand would fit just  _ perfectly _ there. Then up further still, another brief detour to tease and pluck at his pebbled nipples through the ruffle of lace until Lavellan mewls and struggles weakly--but still doesn’t let go of the post.

As a reward the Bull relents and presses a proud little kiss just below his ear.

“Bull,” Lavellan whimpers, his voice breathy and uncertain.

“I’ve got you, kadan.”

“Please, Bull.” Nothing but sweet sincerity this time, and the Bull kisses him again, bending his head to hit the mark on his shoulder this time.

“I’m right here, kadan.”

His shoulders and arms tremble from the strain as the Bull smooths his hands back up to his wrists. Then he peels his hands off the post and squeezes them reassuringly with his own before spinning Lavellan around so quickly he gasps and stumbles, letting the Bull catch him with his body. His hands are still raised above his head, and, as the Bull puts his hands around his waist and lifts, he squeaks and scrambles to wrap them around the Bull’s neck.

His lips are captured mercilessly in a ruthless kiss, his truncated breath stolen by the ravaging qunari who holds him up by the waist and gives no quarter. Lavellan can only hold on as best he can and bow before his invading force as the Bull kisses him to within an inch of his life.

Then, with a parting nip to his bottom lip, the Bull tosses him back onto the mattress, where he lands in a sprawl with a breathless yelp.

The Bull  _ growls _ . “Just  _ look _ at you, kadan.” And he does, leering as he looks his fill. He likes looking at Lavellan, like caressing him and undressing him with his eyes when they’re out in the world together, likes having him put on a show for him when they’re up in Lavellan’s room. And Lavellan likes showing off for him, so they work well.

Now he stares up at the Bull, chest heaving against the constraints of the corset. His hair is a tangled mass of golden curls around his head and his fade green eyes shine with the light of the lamps and the fire.

The Bull growls again, heady with desire and want, and the greedy, possessive knowledge that what he sees is all  _ his _ , his to conquer and take and cherish and hold. He prowls forward onto the bed, feeling more beast than man and covering Lavellan with his much larger body, and Lavellan….

Lavellan makes a soft noise and closes his eyes. Tilts his head back and stretches his body out for the Bull to touch. It’s that easy trust that brings the Bull back to himself, the savagery retreating and leaving hot want in its wake.

“My pretty, pretty kadan” he says, stroking his hand up and down his compressed in sides over and over, and then lower, slipping over his hips, his slender thighs. “Want to keep you like this all the time, all wrapped up and breathless for me.”

He’s not wearing any smalls, nothing but the corset and his necklace, and his pretty pink cock is hard and leaking, leaving damp stains on the pink satin. The Bull gives it a teasing stroke to make him keen and whine, then puts his hands on the back of his thighs and lifts them up. It wouldn’t have occurred to him to look at the other, matching frilly underthings in that shop, panties, stockings, things like that. But that’s ok. Something for next time, something for the Bull to get him as a gift.

“Think you can take me inside you?” the Bull asks, his voice a low rumble full of promise.

“You….” Lavellan stutters, “you’ll never fit when I’m like this.”

They don’t often have penetrative sex. It’s a question of sheer logistics, mostly; Lavellan is so much smaller than him that they don’t often have the time to properly build up to it, and the Bull refuses to rush things in this area. There are plenty of other things they can do, after all. The sweet press of Lavellan’s thighs around him is a favorite for the Bull, as is the wicked stretch of his mouth, and Lavellan just adores the Bull’s fingers, more clever and nimble than you might think for their size, and always pressing in just the right places in just the right way.

But tonight…. “We’ve got all the time in the world, kadan,” the Bull assures him, and kisses him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> yeah, I tried writing the actual sex bits.... Didn't work out, so that's a challenge for another day.
> 
> Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!


End file.
